Biggest BullShit of the Year Award.

I was expecting that my choice would be Dick Cheney or Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann --- or any one of the major clowns in congress or on the airwaves.

But I have settled for Cheney's former communications director, Mary Matalin.

Here's the beaut: Yesterday, on CNN's State of the Union, she told host John King that

"We inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation's history."

What she's saying is: Obama should stop claiming about things he "inherited" from the Bush administration -- after all, Bush inherited the problem with al Qaeda from Clinton.

At the most superficial level, that is of course true. History has continuity; one administration does pass along unsolved problems to the next. Al Qaeda was already in existence and a recognized threat.

So, yes, Bush inherited the problem.

The real story, and that which makes MM's spin such bullshit is that Bush and Condi Rice were informed that al Qaeda was a threat -- both by outgoing counterparts in the transition and by the counter-terrorism officer (Richard Clarke) who stayed on in the Bush administration.

And Bush and Rice did not pay attention -- as late as 08-06-01.

Bullshit.

Ralph