Condi not yet in clear, but...

I'm increasingly convinced there' s more smoke than fire to the July 10, 2001 Black and Tenet scandal (see below for summary). Mad Dog Veniste, the Democratic operative who grilled Condi during the 9/11 Commission hearings, is now disputing key points raised by Woodward. According to the NY Times:

On Monday, officials said Mr. Tenet had told members of the commission about the July 10 meeting when they interviewed him in early 2004, but committee members said he never indicated he had left the White House with the impression that he had been ignored.

“Tenet never told us that he was brushed off,” said Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic member of the commission. “We certainly would have followed that up.”

Now, it's possible, of course, that Tenet in fact felt Condi's brush off (sounds dirty), but didn't want to say anything to the 9/11 Commission for whatever reason -- such as protecting the Adminstration that had just awarded him the Congressional Medal of Honor. But I don't buy that; surely Mad Dog Veniste would have grilled Tenet about the contents of the July 10 meeting itself. And surely if that meeting had included concrete information about an imminent terrorist attack, Mad Dog would have taken the whip to Condi.