What Makes Something "Actionable?"

Evidently, the President requires the 5 Ws and 1 H to be fully explored and articulated before a terrorist threat merits action.

"There was not a time and place of an attack," Bush said yesterday. "It said Osama bin Laden had designs on America. Well, I knew that. What I wanted to know was, is there anything specifically going to take place in America that we needed to react to."

Well, let's see. The PDB memo mentions the possibility of planes being hijacked in an attempt to bargain for the freedom of Islamic militants. The memo mentions that Bin Laden was hell-bent on attacking within the U.S., and it mentions the potential use of explosives. We're not missing the "who" - obviously we're talking about Al Qaeda. We're not missing the "what" - the possibility of hijacked planes and explosives was mentioned. "Where" could have been more specific, but it's clear the memo was talking about attacks on U.S. soil. "When" was also non-specific, but is it asking too much to step up security at our airports if there's a threat specific to airplane hijackings?

I think Bush and Rice were simply asleep at the wheel here.