I fear that if I clarify, I’m belaboring. But OK, whatever…
What is most destructive to Bushiviks hopes and dreams is the erosion of the “rally round” factor. Remember, before 9/11 his approval ratings were just mediocre, he wasn’t doing all that hot. The Pubbies exploited that for all it was worth, and then some. And it wasn’t a matter of actually doing anything, it was all hype and emotion. Perfectly normal, entirely human, nothin’ wrong with it, though I think exploiting that is cynical and opportunistic.
The erosion of that confidence was silent and unseen, it occurs in people who are doubting, but aren’t confident to express that doubt amongst thier peers, “go along, get along”. We monkeys are group-thinkers and conformists, by and large, and loathe to express the unpopular view.
But let us begin to think that such views as we are quietly contemplating are, in fact, fairly prevalent, even respectable, and the floodgates begin to open. We suddenly realize that our neighbor may not think what we presume he thinks. It isn’t the dialogue on the Times op-ed page that counts, its the dialogue in the barber shops, the diners, the water cooler.
Does the event of F-9/11 reflect that change, or effect that change? Doesn’t matter. There it is.
Anyway, I just don’t get the rally-round factor you seem to see. If you can point to any rally-round Bush types who stopped their rallying-around after seeing F-9/11, then maybe your on to something.
Dunno to what extent F911 has contributed to the zeitgeist, but my wife’s grandmother, who hasn’t seen F911 and won’t, has said she doesn’t “know which one of the two evils” she’ll vote for. And I’m talking about a seriously fundamentalist Christian southerner here, somebody whose vote Bush shouldn’t even have to dream about losing.
I can’t tell you whether she’s an outlier or a bellweather, but I swear I can feel those tectonic plates shifting, deep down there somewhere.
Yeah, but what fraction of Americans knew that before F911, do you think? A lot more people have at least a small clue about that, now.
We think we all live in one country, but whole big chunks of America have never been anywhere near a recruiter. Before I heard about that aspect of the movie, it was news to me.
I remain convinced that the job of fighting and dying (and getting arms and legs blown off) for whatever it is that our troops fight and die for - be it freedom, empire, or something in between - should not be contracted out to the lower classes, as if our freedom was only important to them, or as if they would somehow be the ones to benefit from empire.
However much the ones who survive with life, limb, and sanity intact are grateful to their recruiters, ISTM that we owe those kids some other ladder out of their circumstances, one that doesn’t involve greatly increased risk of losing those things.
I have to strongly disagree with several points you’re making here:
(1) The school is FAR from the safest place for him. It’s been publically announced that he will be in this school. If someone had hijacked an airplane in Miami (and in the confusion of the moment, I dout anyone really knew exactly how many airplanes had been hijacked, and from where) it would be easy enough for them to crash that plane into the school. It would be far harder for them to crash it into a moving limo, or an airbase, or a bunker, or wherever else the president might be. (By the way, I definitely don’t agree with those who criticize him for being whisked around to various relatively undisclosed locations once he actually got out of the classroom. That’s exactly what he should have been doing.) Furthermore, there’s no way in hell that those 7 minutes were spent with the secret service having already decided to evacuate the president, but not having decided to where, or how. The SS ALWAYS has a plan ready to implement at a moment’s notice which will get the president to a secret, safe place as quickly as possible. (How do I know that? Because they’re not idiots.)
(2) There are a lot of options between doing nothing (which he did) and running around waving his hands in the air spouting out hastily-conceived orders. Almost everyone, upon hearing that the second tower had been hit, immediately realized that they were living through one of the most significant days in American history. At this point, it might be premature to actually make decisions, as information is lacking. But is the correct response to just sit there passively for seven minutes (and, which this is a subjective matter, I disagree with you that seven minutes is not a very long time in a crisis. It’s an ETERNITY in a crisis) until someone comes in and tells you there’s more information, or is it to calmly excuse yourself and get into contact with your staff, so that you can be updated on new information as it becomes available, and start to discuss options and formulate plans, such that as more information comes in, you’ll already be ready to process it and deal with it?
Fair enough, I wasn’t thinking about the numbers the same way, so I will accept that it was an invalid comparison.
BTW, to whomever asked, I did two months (and 16 combat missions) over Iraq and I had a fun-filled 45-day deployment elsewhere, and when I say fun-filled I mean some really exciting stuff happened with the airplane. Let’s just say that ground fires are never cool.
Otto, like it or not, profiling and stereotyping exists. They know who they’re looking for and they go for them for a reason, that being that those are the people who will sign up in far more vast numbers. Are you saying that they should waste their time trying to recruit J. Elmer Snerdley V, son of billionaire J. Elmer Snerdley IV and heir to millions of dollars out of some misguided sense of fairness? They have a job to do, they do it, and they do it well. As I said twice before, I thought that those Marine recruiters were callous in their approach, but I can assure you (having dealt with them) that most recruiters are very professional. But that’s of course my unsubstantiated opinion, so ignore it if you like.
And you knew then that he wasn’t in danger? You knew that there was zero chance that part 2 of the plan involved a guy with a machine gun outside the school? On the morning of 9/11, you could say with certainty there wasn’t some guy with a Stinger missle in a backyard near the airport? At the moment that the towers were burning, and there were rumors of other planes, and everyone was terrified and confused, you knew with crystal certainty that there was absolutely no chance a guy a mile away was saying prayers in a bomb-laden ice cream truck, having already scouted the route the president would take and ready to test the quality of the armor plating on the limo?
I’m a tad skeptical.
I find it eminently plausible that he was told “Mr. President we have a situation in New York, and we think you may be a target as well. It’s going to take us a few minutes to expedite a secure departure from this school and directly to AF1, and until then we need to hold this position.”
I don’t want the president pulling macho Harrison Ford bullshit, I want him to let the professionals do their jobs.
This is exactly the point I’ve been making for weeks now but Batshit, I mean Liberal, hasn’t gotten it yet. Maybe he’s as dumb as some others have made him out to be after all.
I once saw a photo of John Wayne on vacation in Mexico, dressed up in a shorts and top outfit, stylish in a Hollywood sort of way, but most definitely not “The Duke”. Now, I already knew he was a movie star, not a tough cowboy, not Sgt. Rock of the Death Commandos, but still, it affected my perception even though I already knew better.
I saw the tape of Bush sitting there after hearing the news. Now, maybe, just maybe, he’s reviewing the Order of Battle, making a mental list of swift and leaderly things he’s going to do, any minute…
But it sure looks like a clueless doofus in a state of shock. Now I already knew that GeeDub’s image was manufactured like any other new! improved! product. But I was still taken aback because it conflicted with the image even though I didn’t buy the image!
The image of GeeDubya as strong decisive leader has no basis in fact, but is widely accepted without question. Until the moment you ask yourself “Hey! How come I believe that?” Doesn’t really matter what he was thinking, or not thinking. There he is, looking clueless and anxious.
Want to torture Karl Rove into confessing to the murder of Vince Foster? Show him that clip over and over, three repititions and he’ll hand up his momma.
Due respect, you are mistaken. That was the one place in the US where crashing a plane would be onerously problematic. Air coverage is always provided wherever the president is. Fighter jets and surveillance aircraft routinely monitor the airspace above his head.
That depends on an awful lot of things, not the least of which is whether it is a matter best handled by someone else. The president already knew of the first crash, so the staff quite likely had already been given standing orders to do things like gather information (which they passed on to him), not to mention the fact that information coming in was spotty and contradictory. But it isn’t like he’s the Wizard of Oz who must step behind the curtain to press buttons and pull levers before something can happen. You rightly point out that there are a lot of options between doing nothing and knocking people over to get out. He selected one of them. This business about the seven minutes reminds me of a scene from Meet the Parents, where they’re bickering comically over eight minute abs versus seven minute abs and six minute abs. ANY amount of time is an eternity in a crisis. I’d like to know how many minutes between 1 and 7 you believe he should have waited in the classroom, and why waiting outside it was somehow superior to waiting inside it.
So, let’s say he says almost immediately something like, “Okay, kids, we’re going to have to interrupt this now because the president has something important to do.” He does so calmly, pleasantly, and while smiling. The kids are a bit disoriented, but smile and wave goodbye. That all takes about one minute. Meanwhile, no on can move because the president is on the premises. So the kids sit there and wait six more minutes while the president is out of sight. (It still takes the same length of time to warm up Marine One, dispatch Secret Service staff, and so forth.) You think that’s an eternity to you, imagine what it’s like for them. The newsmen are standing in the room wondering what the fuck is going on. They can’t move until they have clearance either. What we would have is Michael Moore parallel editing footage of a clock and a roomful of nervous antsy children with the president nowhere to be found. And all the left-wingnuts would be hear shouting their outrage and indignation that the president frightened a roomful of children unnecessarily while ducking out of danger and doing God knows what for six minutes. Like I said, people are concerned about a gnat while the whole place stinks from a camel’s ass. Bush is a tyrant — that’s what’s wrong with him. This seven minute crap is bullshit.
That was There’s Something About Mary. And the point is he shouldn’t have been waiting anywhere, fool. He should have been up, gathering information and fucking helping to make decisions, like a leader fucking should.
And we’ve discussed this before. You keep asserting that the secret service felt this was the safest place for him to be. Bullshit! They are on record saying that they wanted to move him as soon as possible. Bush is on record saying that for the time that they remained at the school, in the classroom and in another room, which was about 45 minutes, he worked on his speech to the country.
Keep crying over this, but the problem is that most rational people viewing the tape of his sitting there draw a conclusion different than you do. I reiterate my description of you as a fellatrix.
Oh, Liberal, you’ve got a little dribble on your chin, just there.
You mean like Kerry being a thousand miles away when the gay marriage ban was up for vote. Or Clinton jacking off on Monica while a war waged in Bosnia.
Of course they wanted to move him as soon as possible. They always do exactly that. And of course he worked on what he would say to the country, just as a leader fucking should.
Crying over this? Where the hell are you in threads discussing our loss of freedom thanks to this Jackass in Chief and his henchmen? You are fretting over piddly shit, fiddling while Rome burns. Such brainless and blind idiots are exactly what tyrannical rulers pray for.
I think friend Gouda is fairly secure in stating that he/she thinks something, being as he/she is the only witness with any expertise on what he/she thinks.
In fact, I’d be sorely pressed to think of a rationale as to why you might be better informed on the subject.
Yeah. Good points. Very wise of you. Brilliant. Shithead.
But wait, didn’t you earlier say:
So why did they want to move him, shithead? “Of course they wanted to move him”? Well, they should be fired for moving him from the safest place in America!
Hmmm. You prefer that he focus on saying something, rather than doing something? You like that he sat there, instead of figuring out what was going on. Shithead.
I’m fretting over your mischaracterization of the situation. And I think that they pray for people who will mindlessly suck their dicks, rather than demand that they do their job. You’ve still got that little gob stuck to your chin. Since you are channeling Something About Mary, maybe you can hope that someone mistakes it for hair gel.
I forgot to add this: Just to be crystal clear, I was wrong in recalling 45 minutes. It was 30 minutes that he remained at the school, and 45 minutes until he got to the airport. Here’s the key text from the 9/11 Commission Report:
“He thought he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening…” which he could do by just sitting there? If something is happening outside of the room you are in, how are you going to understand better what is happening without communicating with others?
No matter what he says, this is just another example of Lib’s vehemently defended prejudice. He wasn’t there, he didn’t see it, but he’ll kill himself giving Dub the benefit of the doubt. Likewise, he hasn’t seen F911, but despite everything he’s read–in this thread alone–he’d rather eat his grandmother’s beating heart with a fondue fork than give Moore any benefit of any doubt. It’s all about partisan prejudice.
Unfair. Libby (Hey, if I got to be 'luci he can by God be Libby!) has expressed doubt and criticism of GeeDubya (Praise the Leader!) on more than several occassions. Granted, he seems determined to believe that this particular episode is blameless. We are, I believe, compelled to accept that as possible, since we cannot peer into the Prez’ mind and inventory the contents thereof.
For my two bits, I see a man in a state of stress and confusion, reviewing the options: shit, or go bowling. In all honesty I’m not at all sure I can fault such a reaction. What I do fault is the relentless barrage of horsetrickle to the effect that The Leader swung directly into boldly competent executive leadership, refusing even to contemplate any ordinary human failings in what is a most spectacularly ordinary man.
