Whoul'd've Ever Thunk It?

Interesting review of a Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's 1991 musical "Assassins" in this week's Economist.

"Assassins", in turn, has had its resonance amplified by recent events. In 1991, audiences may not have fully taken to the story of Samuel Byck, one of the eight presidential killers, or would-be killers, presented in the show. His aim (never achieved) in 1974 was to dive-bomb a commercial airliner into the White House, thereby assassinating Richard Nixon.

Now, I'm not one of those "blame Bushers"... but still. If artsy-fartsy New York composers could conceive of the threat, isn't it just a little astonishing that:

And I said, "No one could have imagined them taking a plane, slamming it into the Pentagon" -- I'm paraphrasing now -- "into the World Trade Center, using planes as a missile." As I said to you in the private session, I probably should have said, "I could not have imagined," because within two days, people started to come to me and say, "Oh, but there were these reports in 1998 and 1999. The intelligence community did look at information about this." To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Chairman, this kind of analysis about the use of airplanes as weapons actually was never briefed to us.

- Condoleezza Rice