How did I miss this anniversary?

Six years and three days ago exactly, the President of the United States of America spent the day at his Texas ranch, and spoke to then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice about Macedonia.

Oh yes, he also received a Presidential Daily Brief warning that Osama bin Laden was determined to strike in the USA itself, was preparing to hijack aircraft, and that the FBI had detected "suspicious activity". Bush, who was in the middle of a 32-day holiday (at the time the longest presidential vacation since 1969), was too busy building a new trail to do anything about it, but fortunately the then Attorney-General John Ashcroft had earlier been given a warning about al Qaeda's plans to hijack airplanes. He did the only thing a man in his position (head of all law enforcement in the USA) could do.

He stopped travelling on commercial airlines and started travelling exclusively on chartered planes. Hang the expense, nothing's too good to save the Attorney-General and his staff.