"Settling in"

Why in the name of hell would someone who would write that "journalistic courage should include the refusal to publish in a newspaper or carry on a TV or radio news show any statements made by the President or any other government official that are designed solely as a public relations tool, offering no new or valuable information to the public" feel it necessary to spout off the following nonsense?

Hayden said there has not been any noticeable increase in terrorist chatter that would indicate al-Qaeda is preparing to take advantage of a presidential transition period as they did in attacking the World Trade Center in 1993 shortly after President Clinton took office, or again in 2001, as the Bush administration was settling in. "No real or artificial spike [in intercepted terrorist communications] has been caused by the transition," he said.

(emphasis added)

The 1993 WTC bombing happened in February - barely a month after Inaguration Day. But we're supposed to believe that Bush's administration was still "settling in" EIGHT GODDAMN MONTHS after they took office?

That's right up there with Reagan's comment on why there wasn't sufficent security at the U.S. embassy in Lebanon in 1983:

He conceded that security arrangements at the new embassy had not been finished when a terrorist zigzagged an explosives-laden truck around concrete barriers and set off a blast that killed at least 13 people, including two Americans. With a smile, the President then suggested a singularly inappropriate analogy: "Anyone that's ever had their kitchen done over knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would."

Of course, then again, when the person who was the head of National Security during the "settling in" would pop off an idiot comment like "Saddam Hussein, that brutal monster that caused three wars in the region, including dragging us in twice", well, you might have to take a bit longer than average to get oriented.