I also believe that Bush and Rice attended a political summit in Italy a few months before 9/11/2001, and security precautions include anti-aircraft missiles to thwart attempts to ram airliners into the meeting site.
New Iskander
You mentioned 1 quote from Dubya Bush “Stay the course”. Did he say that on Sept 12, 2001? I think it was a year or 2 after that wasn’t it?
You also put a “yawn” after the FDR quote about a “rendezvous with destiny”.
In 70 years I wonder if people are going to be quoting - “stay the course”.
What an inspiring bit of eloquence.
Yeah, it’s not the way you say something that makes it inspirational, it’s how it parses. :rolleyes:
The last quote shows Churchill had a sense of humor… I say that’s another point for him.
yea, there was an industrial leak at the border w/Washington. oops and all that.
I detest Bush as much as anyone, but criticizing him for My Pet Goat is over the top. I mean, the guy picks up a book for the first time in forever, and he wanted to see how it ended. Give him a break.
Staying on Air Force One isn’t an issue for me. There isn’t much that he could do at the White House than he couldn’t on Air Force One.
His leadership was no more effective then than it is today. People just needed to rally around something and he was available.
If that’s true, then yeah, shocking that we weren’t more prepared for it. One must wonder if Bush and the CIA actually believed it might really happen. But I’ll stop defending President Looneytunes now.
Giuliani spent the next day (9/12) calling the heads of every New York City institution and asking them “How soon are we getting back to business?” (and, I’m proud to add, Broadway was first in line, re-opening on Thursday 9/13). His top priority was getting the City back to normal.
I’m not sure what Bush was doing that week. He did read a book to schoolchildren, take a long plane ride, hide in an underground bunker, and make a grandstand appearance at Ground Zero on Sunday, but that’s all I remember.
Do you have a cite for this? I asked about this very thing over at snopes, and it had pretty well been debunked. I’m pretty sure it never happened, but not 100% sure. If you’ve got more information I’d be interested in looking it over.
Plus, you don’t fight anyone with the butt end, it’s the top end that has the handle. Churchill, as a long established veteran of cabinet level infighting, would surely have known that.
One thing about the Churchill quote: It has been said that it was announced over an Eastern European radio station. My girlfriend’s ex-husband’s father claims to have been there when it happened. Neat trick, as he was actually in a concentration camp at the time.
Cite
Search keywords: “beer”, “bottle” or "butt " (with a space at the end).
I think it’s a historical anecdote, always superior to real history.
I’m no barfight veteran, but seems logical to hold the bottle by the neck and point the butt at the adversary. Better yet, break off the to make jagged edge, like Lancaster vs. Borgnine for picking on Sinatra just before Pearl Harbor (“From here to eternity”?).
Main point is, without that purported aside, “We shall fight…” speechifying was apparently commonplace at the time and only seems striking after 65 years passed.
Well, that’s it. If you break it in half, the butt end goes on the floor.
I’m not going to try to make jokes any more.
BobLibDem
I’d agree with that assessment. As Woody Allen said, “80% of success is just showing up”.
This (I think) is the most accurate version of the Woody Allen quote.
A few quick comments:
(1) There are few issues that get me as riled up as the Pet Goat thing. It just strikes me as GLARINGLY and DEFINITIVELY obvious proof (well, anecdotal proof) that, whatever Bush’s strengths as a president, he is NOT decisive and action-oriented. The reason I get so worked up about it is not that I think it’s really all that big a deal, in the grand scheme of things. When history is judging the Bush presidency, it will be a footnote at best. Rather, I get so worked up about it because, unlike other issues, it just strikes me as something which can only be viewed one way. I just plain don’t accept ANY of the arguments I’ve heard that it was NOT an error, and a sign of weakness, on Bush’s part. I won’t go into it at great length here, as I’ve learned that it’s not an argument that gets anywhere, but, of all the contentious issues argued on the SDMB, it is the one where I most feel that, if the issue were formally debated in front of an intelligent but disinterested party, my side would overwhelmingly prevail. (If someone is curious, I’ll expound on my views… I love me some arguing about the Pet Goat.)
(2) As for the next 24 hours, I definitely think that Bush should not have overruled the Secret Service at all as far as getting him the heck to a secret location as fast as possible is concerned. I mean, what was he going to do? Go to the white house? Go to ground zero and put on a mask and help out? BUT, he should have addressed the nation far more quickly, far more passionately, and far more often. Even if all he could say was “on this day of incredible tragedy and bravery, blah blah blah, God Bless America, I’ll talk again in another hour”, that would have done a LOT of good
(3) As most people seem to do, I thought he did a fine enough job in Afghanistan.
(4) While I can’t claim I’m particularly knowledgeable about the topic, nothing I know indicates that the leadership he’s shown on issues like Homeland Security, intelligence reorganization, etc., has been particularly impressive
(5) And of course, the iraq war is Bad Bad Bad
And if you do it wrong, the neck shatters and you’re holding a handful of jagged glass. Hope your opponent doesn’t squeeze…
Except for that whole let’s-leave-after-four-months-and-forget-about-Osama-Bin-Whoever bit, yeah…
Who was this collegue? Was this person the only one who knew about it, and if so, how did the story get out?
Not to derail this thread. Maybe we can take this to GQ.
And that shit ain’t funny a bit…I’ve seen it happen in Germany.
No offense but last time I looked, we still had a lot of people over there.
Yeah, but the problem is that there ain’t enough of them. Haven’t you heard that the Taliban are back?
yea, and IIRC, at best Kabul itself was semi safe, the rest of the country wasn’t necessarily.