Everything is so simple in hindsight, isn't it? However, I find it strange that most of those reports were gathered during... Clinton's term in office? Yeah, wrong guy. Furthermore, there are a couple of points made in that article you seemed to have deliberately overlooked.
One, Al-Qaeda planned years in advance. So, how is a transcript shown a month in advance (and a lot can happen in a month, mind you), going to suddenly enlighten the entire US intelligence community. Nothing in that transcript screams ATTACK IS IMMINENT! Personally, I see "Threat located, search and destroy initiated, prepare for after action report". After all, the FBI already said it had around 70 investigations on these guys, and all those claims were at least 2 years old.
Furthermore, Al-Qaeda had backup guys, if I remember correctly. They were caught somewhere in Florida after the attacks. If we had gotten the first bunch, do you think they wouldn't have tried to still make it work? Look at the embassy bombings mentioned; they lost members of the bombing teams and they still pulled it off (even if it didn't go completely according to their plan). If we had twarted them, we'd have 5/23 or a 8/2 instead of a 9/11, as they would have tried again and again.
Finally, I think the point you all are trying to make is that one man can change the entire scope of a government, and therefore it's that man's fault for all that is wrong in the world. And that is the reason that I still stay by the president. I know he has flaws, and I don't agree with everything he does or how he does it. But it's naive to thing that one man can change the entire political structure of a country. The President has a lot of influence, I'll concede. His ability to influence the media with conferences gives him an advantage over Congress in some ways. The thing is though, he needs a lot of support to get everything he wants done, which means getting congressional support, which means those legislators' consituencies must make it clear they support the president's actions and that their representative/senator should also. It comes back to the people. And even if you want to play the "the people are sheep" card (easy to play, many Americans don't take the time to stay politically aware, but that's an opportunity cost analysis I won't go into), the President still needs a large buearacracy (sp
) to do the job, collect the information, advise him, and play a role in the decision making. One man does not make a government, no matter how conviently he places himself to blame. I suppose next your going to tell me the president of Iran actually has more than a token power to wield and the country isn't mainly ruled by a religious council?
Not very glorious one I'd say for Bush administration it was, but well, not first not last! 
