Why Are These People Smiling?

This picture of Bush and new U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers has appeared in many newspapers:



Most of them, including the New York Times, did not indicate the exact date that this photo of the two posing for the camera was taken. Fortunately, some did print the date. It was taken on August 6, 2001.

As Editor & Publisher points out, the date is significant:

Does that date sound familiar? Indeed, that was the date, a little over a month before 9/11, that President Bush was briefed on the now-famous “PDB” that declared that Osama Bin Laden was “determined” to attack the U.S. homeland, perhaps with hijacked planes. But does that mean that Miers had anything to do with that briefing?

As it turns out, yes, according to Tuesday's Los Angeles Times. An article by Richard A. Serrano and Scott Gold observes that early in the Bush presidency “Miers assumed such an insider role that in 2001 it was she who handed Bush the crucial 'presidential daily briefing' hinting at terrorist plots against America just a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.”

So, again, I ask:
Why Are These People Smiling and Posing for the Camera?

And, as they are smiling and posing for the camera, let's all yell it from the rooftops:
George W. Bush is the Worst President Ever!

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