Huh?

I don’t even know why I’m surprised by this shit anymore, but I am:

When was the president first briefed about the events in Haditha?

"When a Time reporter first made the call,'' Snow said. "Time began asking questions about it.''

The president then was briefed by National Security Adviser Steve Hadley, Snow said, and the president "began asking questions then.''

So, Time started making calls to the White House in January, two months after the incident, and only then was Bush made aware of it. I can’t find in any news reports what the official timeline of the military investigation was, but we know that the story about what happened has changed at least twice, prompting a separate inquiry into a possible cover-up and suggesting that someone in the military knew there was a problem—and if the allegations about what happened turn out to be true, it’s a major fucking problem. A human rights problem, an ethical problem, a PR problem…a problem of Abu Ghraib proportions, of which the president should have been made aware for reasons other than an interested reporter, one would think.

UPDATE: The preliminary inquiry has found "evidence that U.S. Marines killed two dozen Iraqi civilians in an unprovoked attack in November, contradicting the troops' account, U.S. officials said on Wednesday." Bush comments:

I am troubled by the initial news stories. I am mindful there is a thorough investigation going on. If in fact laws were broken there will be punishment.

Troubled by the stories. Interesting word choice.