Bush Maneuvering to Discredit 9/11 Commission?

The morning news brings this from the Washington Post: "President Bush and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) have decided to oppose granting more time to an independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, virtually guaranteeing that the panel will have to complete its work by the end of May...."

Also virtually guaranteeing that the commission will not have finished its work, including interviewing some 200 witnesses and examining over 2 million pages of documents ... largely because the Bush White House has fought the commission on access to many documents.

There have already been startling hints from commission co-chair, former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean (R), that the commission's report was going to finger the current president as sharing in the fault for failing to see 9/11 coming.

And very clearly, today's Post story indicates that Bush continues to be unhelpful to the commission. It looks very much like a set-up, to declare the commission's report -- whatever it turns out to reveal -- as flawed and hence unreliable.