The Bush administration should make public the facts about Saudi Arabia's complicity with terrorists rather than worry about offending the kingdom, lawmakers said Sunday.
One senator said 95 percent of the classified pages of a congressional report released last week into the work of intelligence agencies before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was kept secret only to keep from embarrassing a foreign government.
''I went back and read every one of those pages, thoroughly. ... My judgment is 95 percent of that information could be declassified, become uncensored so the American people would know,'' said Shelby, R-Ala.
The 28 Saudi pages look like a tar baby to me—"Please don't force us to expose the 28 pages on the Saudis!"
Meaning that the real issues are elsewhere. For example, how the White House was briefed.
UPDATE: Alert reader Lucille says I mean "red herring." Not "tar baby." Well, I mean tar baby, since focusing on the 28 pages will suck up investigative resources, news cycles, blog space, etc., that could otherwise be focused on more important issues (like what did the White House know?)