Relatives of victims of the World Trade Center bombings gasped in horror and disgust as Condoleezza Rice testified at the 9-11 Commission's ninth public hearing that she had briefed President George Bush with an August 6, 2001 CIA-memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside United States". As Rice danced around the majority of the questions put to her by the 9/11 Commission, several relatives yelled, "Shame!" while she continued to deny that the White House had knowledge prior to 9-11 of a possible terrorist attack on key designations on the East Coast. Many San Franciscans will remember that Rice must have known something serious enough to warrant a personal warning call to Mayor Willie Brown a full eight hours before the attacks. Many critics feel that her political connections to the two-party controlled commission helped to dumb down her interview, which was supposed to allot ten minutes per commissioner, but was instead eaten up by Rice's long-winded replies. Her credibility only continues to be degraded when one considers the outright lies that she has spun on Saddam and Iraq.

Rice is not alone in her spin-fest, though. No team of complicit war-mongerers would be complete without a suspect Secretary of Defense, and Donald Rumsfeld has told his own share of whoppers, including the one about "imminent threat," brilliantly captured on TV. Bush and Cheney are still planning to appear before the commission, though they have made it clear that they need each other in the interview and refuse to go it alone, to the derision of many. According to White House statements, neither the pre-9/11 memo nor the Bush and Cheney joint interview will be declassified or made available to the press or public.