Giving Thanks Inside the Bubble

"Before she leaves President George W. Bush's administration in early 2008, Townsend said she wants to make sure that plans are in place to head off any potential terrorist threat before or after elections for president and Congress and to ensure there is 'no lag in information sharing' between the Bush administration and the next occupant of the White House.

"'We know that al-Qaeda' tends to view elections 'as a period of vulnerability,' Townsend, 45, said in an interview. 'I don't know if there will be a particular threat, but we can't ignore what we have already seen.'"

Here's Wolf Blitzer talking to Townsend on CNN:

Townsend: "I decided it was time for me to take my experience and go onto the private sector."

Blitzer: "Because a few months back, the White House chief of staff, Josh Bolten, said you either leave now or you're with us for the duration. Whatever happened to that?"

Townsend: "You know, it's funny. I talked to Josh about that. I never heard him say that, and Josh doesn't ever recall having said that

Blitzer: "Oh, really?"

Townsend: "So that's become something of an urban myth."

If it's a myth, however, it's one that was spread by both Snow and Rove in explaining the timing of their departures earlier this year.

In an interview with Newsweek reporters Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, Towsend repeated the "urban myth" line -- but added that "[i]n any case, she said, 'my job doesn't lend itself to artificial deadlines.'"

Blitzer tweaked Townsend by playing back one of her famous lines from a year ago, when Towsend said about the administration's inability to capture or kill Osama bin Laden: "It's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I'd view that as a failure."

Liberal blogger Steve Benen looks at some of Townsend's other "greatest hits."