# An Interesting Day, indeed (Bush on the morning of 9/11) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 10, 2004, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432 "2004-07-10T14:13:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/41 "2004-07-10T21:00:24Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > But here is a wide-open blog accessible to anyone with an expired CCL license that flatly disclaims any reliability whatsoever Do the cites mean NOTHING to you? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/42 "2004-07-10T21:03:16Z")
No, I just think there is a miscommunication. Apparently, you thought Bush meant to go in and destroy 60 countries one at a time, but I thought he meant to go in and destroy selectively the Al-Qaeda cells in each of them one at a time. He’s a baseball fan (and former owner), and he likely used it in the precision-strike sense that I quoted from American Heritage. If the reporters intentionally used the quote as a means to enrage people unfamiliar with that usage, then they weren’t very honest. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/43 "2004-07-10T21:04:26Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > Do the cites mean NOTHING to you? 😃 I just commended you for checking the cites. Why on earth would you ask me that? ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/44 "2004-07-10T21:25:27Z")
> [@](#): > > It is a message board run by slackers and New York hippies with expired CCL licenses who blatantly disclaim its accuracy, currency, and completeness. I am not saying that the information is inaccurate; I’m saying that a prudent man will question everything on the page. Do you for some reason disagree? Look, I have to admit, that when I read what you wrote, I felt it was opposite-land day too. That the site disclaims any reliability shouldn’t make any difference to the stand that reliability of information should be judged irregardless of source. A site could have “all this information is wrong” at the bottom, and that makes no difference: “is the particular information cited right or wrong” is the question you’ve, rightly, tried to point people at in the past. Jumping on this disclaimer in order to call into question the information does seem a bit uncharacteristic. Of course we should be skeptical of all sources, but normally people who make this exact point you treat with deep suspicion, if not told outright that they are poisoning the well or engaging in ad hominem when they argue, on grounds they think are justified, that the source cannot be trusted. That’s what probably got people’s hackles up here. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/45 "2004-07-10T21:48:22Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > On second thought, since a third grader could grasp that, you are just being a jerk. _Ad hominem_. Rejected out of hand. No probative value regarding the truth of what I’ve said. > [@](#): > > When you use quotation marks, what is between them ought to be the words of the person you’re quoting. Do not misquote me again in that manner. Sorry if I gave the impression that I was directly quoting you. I was quoting the phrase that was consistently used in the cited thread. In future, I’ll make sure to precede such a statement with the qualifier, “Paraphrasing **Lib** :” > [@](#): > > Pnce again (what, fourth time now?), the dire warning comes from the site itself I’ve addressed that already. You must have missed it. > [@](#): > > Same same for CNN and MSNBC. But here is a wide-open blog accessible to anyone with an expired CCL license that flatly disclaims any reliability whatsoever, and what do you do? Waste time nitpicking over something you do not even understand, making the whole thing about me rather than about the source, and even digging though 16,000 posts to lift one remark out of context that is not even applicable here. Not applicable? I’d say it was dead on point - you persist in addressing the arguer, and failing to address the argument. Take your own advice. > [@](#): > > Your argument is desparate, stupid, vapid, and ignorant. And those are its good points. More _ad hominem_ (well, not quite, but I think it’s acceptable to assume that someone who accuses someone of making desperate, stupid, vapid, and ignorant arguments must think that the person making those arguments shares pretty much the same characteristics). Just one question: when do you plan, if ever, to address the validity of the information trotted out on that website, and stop attacking the source, and attacking those who are attacking you? Is this really the best you can do? You certainly wouldn’t accept such debating tactics from anyone else. Why should anyone accept it from you? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/46 "2004-07-10T22:16:48Z")
> [@Early Out](#): > > Just one question: when do you plan, if ever, to address the validity of the information trotted out on that website, and stop attacking the source, and attacking those who are attacking you? Complex question fallacy. Since you intend to cherry-pick my posts and respond only to selected sentences, I’ll make this brief and in one sentence: I do not now plan, nor will I ever plan, to address the validity of the information trotted out on that website because I already know that Bush is an idiot and a tyrant, and I find this whole business of feigning heart attacks at every sniffle, facial expression, and spoken nuance of this thug to be patently ridiculous, along the lines of an almost Alice in Wonderland misapprehension of the actual gravity of his tyranny. > [@Apos](#): > > Look, I have to admit, that when I read what you wrote, I felt it was opposite-land day too Noted. You, however, do understand the difference between questioning a source because of its credentials and discarding a source because of its credentials. I know this because you are both intelligent and honest. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/47 "2004-07-10T22:29:46Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I do not now plan, nor will I ever plan, to address the validity of the information trotted out on that website… Glad we cleared that up. That’s pretty much all I need to know. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/48 "2004-07-10T22:33:01Z")
> [@Early Out](#): > > Glad we cleared that up. That’s pretty much… Why, thank you for admitting your error. Good lad. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/49 "2004-07-10T22:34:52Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > No, I just think there is a miscommunication. Apparently, you thought Bush meant to go in and destroy 60 countries one at a time, but I thought he meant to go in and destroy selectively the Al-Qaeda cells in each of them one at a time. He’s a baseball fan (and former owner), and he likely used it in the precision-strike sense that I quoted from American Heritage. If the reporters intentionally used the quote as a means to enrage people unfamiliar with that usage, then they weren’t very honest. Since so far the history is that Bush does indeed mean to go in and destroy 60 countries one at a time, you may want to rethink that thought. I am a baseball fan (though not a team owner ☹ ) but that is not the usage that sprang to my mind. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/50 "2004-07-10T22:37:13Z")
I disagree. He is too much of a coward to fight 60 countries at once. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/51 "2004-07-10T22:52:30Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t know the time frame yet of any of these false reports, but shouldn’t SOMEONE have gotten the idea that a plane could be headed for that school? It doesn’t matter that it didn’t happen and, it seems, wasn’t going to happen (even though Atta might have been scoping the area out). Osama and his merery band spent _months_ selecting and preparing to hit _huge_ targets, visible for miles around and easily seen from the air. Where is the evidence that the president’s visit to the elementary school was publicized more than a week or two prior to the visit? And do you know how similar cities and suburbs look from the air? Why do you think there is so much collateral damage inflicted by professionally trained airmen in the various air strikes we’ve seen from WWII through Gulf 2? I expect the Secret Service to be aware of those sorts of problems and to make their emergency moves accordingly. (Yes, I am aware that on that morning we did not immediately know that the planes were flown by half-trained amateurs. I do, however, expect the Secret Service to not be panicked into hastily moving the president from a previously secured building out into the sights of an assassin who may be hoping that panic will bring him out into the open. If an assassination team had detonated a van filled with explosives near the children lined up for a fire drill, just missing the president who had not yet emerged from the building and was protected by being on the far side of the building, would you now be criticizing him for using the children as shields?) There are a lot of scenarios that we can invent to make GWB (or his staff or the Secret Service) into cowards or fools or dithering idiots. The reality is that no one in the U.S. was truly prepared for this sort of assault and the reactions of various individuals can be second-guessed until doomsday. I find such speculation fun in a “what if?” sort of way (_What if_ the radar operators at Opana (and their superiors) had recognized that the blips coming from the Northwest had to be hostile aircraft at Pearl Harbor? _What if_ the torpedo bombers had not “disastrously” arrived at the Japanese fleet in advance of the dive bombers at Midway? _What if_ the Japanese navy bombers had not been grounded by fog on Formosa (Taiwan) so that MacArthur’s air wing had already run out of fuel and returned to base when the Japanese showed up late to bomb them?) However, I do not see any point in changing my opinions of Kimmel and Short or Nagumo or MacArthur based on these speculative games. And I simply cannot get excited about these sorts of _What if?_ questions when applied to the actions (and movements) of the president and his staff on that morning. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/52 "2004-07-10T23:11:45Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > No, hijackers didn’t target the school, **BUT NO ONE KNEW THAT IT WOULDN’T HAPPEN AT THE TIME**! > b) he put those kids and everyone else there in jeopardy by staying there 'scuse me? If the hijackers had targeted the school also, then at the time that the Pres arrived, the plane that would have been targeting it would have already been in the air. His staying at the school or not being there would not have changed the situation in the slightest. THe hijackers had their plan when they got on their planes. didn’t seem to be any mid air potential for correction/alternate plan, “hey, Muhammed, Bush left the school, try for Disneyworld instead”. I agree that the “correct” way to have acted was to issue appologies, gently telling the kids\< “I’m sorry but as President there are things I have to do right now and we’ll have to reschedule this”, and the image of him just sitting there reading to the class etc is powerful (but really, doesn’t mean that much). And I don’t really believe that “no one could reach Bush” while he was at the school. so for whatever reason the authorization wasn’t issued, it wasn’t 'cause there was no way to get in touch w/him (after all, some one did indeed get in touch while he was there, to inform him of the second plane). There are so many fine reasons to hate the man, work hard to defeat him in November. this is not one of them IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2004, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/53 "2004-07-11T00:11:15Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Why, thank you for admitting your error. Good lad. **lissener** is right - you’re still an idiot. I agree with you completely about the current administration. But you’re still an insufferable ass. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2004, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/54 "2004-07-11T07:15:23Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Osama and his merery band spent _months_ selecting and preparing to hit _huge_ targets, visible for miles around and easily seen from the air. Where is the evidence that the president’s visit to the elementary school was publicized more than a week or two prior to the visit? It was only announced to the public September 7. > [@tomndebb](#): > > And do you know how similar cities and suburbs look from the air? Why do you think there is so much collateral damage inflicted by professionally trained airmen in the various air strikes we’ve seen from WWII through Gulf 2? I expect the Secret Service to be aware of those sorts of problems and to make their emergency moves accordingly. I see what you mean, it would have been a very small target. > [@tomndebb](#): > > I do, however, expect the Secret Service to not be panicked into hastily moving the president from a previously secured building out into the sights of an assassin who may be hoping that panic will bring him out into the open. If an assassination team had detonated a van filled with explosives near the children lined up for a fire drill, just missing the president who had not yet emerged from the building and was protected by being on the far side of the building, would you now be criticizing him for using the children as shields?) This makes sense to me, and is something I hadn’t thought about. Your scenario as a possibility is much more likely than my scenario. I back down on my “they should have evacuated the school immediately” stance. Still, doesn’t the secret service sweep quite a wide area before the president gets there? If his security had surface-to-air missiles on top of his hotel and an AWAC plane circling it the night before, I’d think they would checked out any cars/vans/trucks anywhere near the area, and searched for possible sniper site lines. That’s what they do. It’s their job. Btw, no, I wouldn’t have accused him of using the children as shields. That’s silly. > [@tomndebb](#): > > There are a lot of scenarios that we can invent to make GWB (or his staff or the Secret Service) into cowards or fools or dithering idiots. We don’t have to invent any. It’s all right there on film. > [@wring](#): > > 'scuse me? If the hijackers had targeted the school also, then at the time that the Pres arrived, the plane that would have been targeting it would have already been in the air. His staying at the school or not being there would not have changed the situation in the slightest. THe hijackers had their plan when they got on their planes. didn’t seem to be any mid air potential for correction/alternate plan, “hey, Muhammed, Bush left the school, try for Disneyworld instead”. I already backed down on the evacuation demand, but I don’t get this at all. Let’s assume that yes, a plane targeting the school was enroute. You seem to be saying that, well, since he’s already on his way, and there’s nothing we can do about it, we might as well sit here and wait for the inevitable. My indignation at their not evacuating the school, which was burning white hot a few hours ago, has cooled to the temperature of ice cream, but this makes it flare up a bit again. If a plane had been on its way, and no one knew at the time that one wasn’t, why would staying there be better than leaving, just because they couldn’t stop the plane? If the house next door is on fire, and I’m pretty sure (but not certain) that it’s going to catch my house on fire, should I sit here and type on the computer because, well, it’s probably going to happen anyway and there’s nothing I can do about it? ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2004, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/55 "2004-07-11T08:06:33Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I find this whole business of feigning heart attacks at every sniffle, facial expression, and spoken nuance of this thug to be patently ridiculous, along the lines of an almost Alice in Wonderland misapprehension of the actual gravity of his tyranny. Usually serial killers start out by torturing small animals. Should a researcher, historian or interested person not be looking to catalogue the small, petty-by-comparison stuff just because the body count is now in the hundreds? We _all_ know that Bush is an idiot thug, who’s done far worse things than sit in a school and look doofy, but it’s still important to document all of these things. For one, the press has given him an incredible free ride. That page documents far more than just what happened at the school. There’s the matter of all the bogus threats to Air Force One. Cheney or Rove just made up out of thin air reports that terrorists had cracked the AFO codes. There’s the matter of it taking 2 hours(!) for AFO to get fighter jet escorts. Then, and I’m still shaking my head over it, are all the ways the WH tried to re-write history by the first anniversay of 9/11. > [@](#): > > Rewriting History > > The many accounts of what happened to Bush on 9/11 are riddled with disinformation of false threats, omitted details, fudged timing, and more. But around **September 11, 2002** , the heavily publicized first anniversary of the attacks, there was an obvious attempt to further rewrite the story. > > Chief of Staff Andrew Card claimed that **after he told Bush about the second World Trade Center crash, “it was only a matter of seconds” before Bush “excused himself very politely to the teacher and to the students, and he left”** the classroom. Card also stated that Bush **“quickly excused himself to a holding room.”** [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/11/02] In a different account, Card said, **“Not that many seconds later the president excused himself from the classroom.”** [MSNBC, 9/9/02] The Booker school video shows these statements are lies - unless “a matter of seconds” means over 700 seconds! > > Sandra Kay Daniels, the teacher whose second-grade classroom Bush visited on 9/11, told the Los Angeles Times that after Card informed Bush of the second crash, **Bush got up and left. “He said, ‘Ms. Daniels, I have to leave now.’ … Looking at his face, you knew something was wrong. I said a little prayer for him. He shook my hand and left.” Daniels also said, “I knew something was up when President Bush didn’t pick up the book and participate in the lesson.”** [Los Angeles Times, 9/11/02] However, the Booker video clearly shows that Bush did follow along after being told of the second plane. [Video: Center for Cooperative Research, Buzzflash, Global Free Press, The Emperor’s New Clothes, or Liberty DYNU] > > The New York Post reported, **"A federal agent rushed into the room** to inform the president of the United States. President Bush had been presiding over [Daniels’s] reading class last 9/11, when a Secret Service agent interrupted the lesson and asked, ‘Where can we get to a television?’" **Daniels then claimed that Bush left the class even before the second crash: “The president bolted right out of here and told me: ‘Take over.’”** When the second crash occurred, she claims her students were watching TV in a nearby media room. [New York Post, 9/12/02] This article is riddled with errors. As mentioned previously, the Secret Service was already watching the second plane crash live on television in an adjacent room at 9:03 - long before this supposedly happened. Nor did Bush “bolt” out of the room; in fact, even **pro-Bush author Bill Sammon called Bush “the dawdler in chief” for taking so long to leave the room.** [Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism - From Inside the Bush White House, by Bill Sammon, 10/02, p. 90] > > \*\*Bush himself took part in the historical revisionism. In an extensive video interview shown on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” he again repeated his bizarre belief that he was watching television when the first crash took place. > > CBS also revived the false story that terrorists had broken Air Force One’s secret codes, even though it was CBS who debunked that same story nearly a year earlier. \*\*[CBS, 9/11/02] Unbelieveable. He still thought he saw the first plane crash one year later. Shame on CBS for seriously reporting on something that had already been debunked, by themselves! And I hope Sandra Daniels found some good medication for that tragic memory problem of hers. I understand about memory playing tricks, but that’s a magician’s convention in her head. It’s just more little crap to throw on top of the huge pile, but none of it, either the facts as known, or the effort to rewrite history, should get lost for either our current bank of knowledge, or future generations. And people wonder why Michael Moore added that footage. Even I didn’t know that he was trying to counteract all these “mistruths.” ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2004, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/56 "2004-07-11T08:11:01Z")
> [@](#): > > At about the same time Bush was getting ready for his jog, a van carrying several Middle Eastern men pulled up to the Colony’s guard station. The men said they were a television news crew with a scheduled “poolside” interview with the president. They asked for a certain Secret Service agent by name. The message was relayed to a Secret Service agent inside the resort, who hadn’t heard of the agent mentioned or of plans for an interview. He told the men to contact the president’s public relations office in Washington, DC, and had the van turned away. [Longboat Observer, 9/26/01] Does this make sense to anybody? A van full of Middle Eastern men, claiming to be a news crew, trying to get access to the President, and they are just turned away? They didn’t get names or look at ID’s and credntials or anything? Does this sound like the United States Secret Service??? ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2004, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/57 "2004-07-11T09:55:26Z")
> [@spooje](#): > > Does this make sense to anybody? > > A van full of Middle Eastern men, claiming to be a news crew, trying to get access to the President, and they are just turned away? > > They didn’t get names or look at ID’s and credntials or anything? > > Does this sound like the United States Secret Service??? It makes no sense to me either. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2004, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/58 "2004-07-11T10:58:31Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > He still thought he saw the first plane crash one year later. Heaven forbid I should defend the man, but could he not have been referring to having seen the footage of the WTC with a big hole in it, that was shown just minutes after the first impact? I always thought that is what was meant by his statement (I also recall reference to a TV set in the school hall). ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2004, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/59 "2004-07-11T11:52:52Z")
Lord have mercy. Yes, Equipoise, it is important to document things, but it is even more important to keep those things in perspective. If you waste time hammering at inconsequential trivia, you might end up alienating a significant number of people who otherwise would appreciate the severity of what actually matters. Take this whole business at the school, for example. Once certain facts dawn on someone, you place them in the untenable position of actually having to defend the bastard. Conflicting reports, for example. There have been conflicting eyewitness reports about important events since time immemorial. That’s just the nature of the thing. Different people perceive things differently. A couple of minutes can indeed feel like a couple of seconds whenever things are happening fast and furious. One person might recall that he was reading, while another might recall that he was looking at this watch. That’s what happens with eyewitness recountings. But the newsfilm of the actual event appears to me to be an eminently reasonable amount of time for security to prepare things for the President’s exit. Believe it or not, he cannot just move around as he pleases. Treasury Department agents follow certain guidelines that they do not consult him about. (This is one of the things I learned on West Wing.) If they say move, stay, or duck, they can _force_ the President to move, stay, or duck whenever they believe his security to be at risk. Seven minutes to make arrangements for him to leave the school is completely reasonable. Second, revising history? That is the sort of exaggeration that will cause people to recoil and think you’re being dishonest. False memory is something that afflicts every single person on earth from presidents and kings to message board posters. Nobody ever remembers every detail perfectly of even the most significant events of their lives. Brains — especially brains of imbeciles like Bush — are not organized that way. There is no linear recall apparatus that feeds back to a person picture-perfect recall of exactly what happened in the exact order it ocurred. Finally, the very act of second-guessing someone in a crisis cannot be exceeded by any other act of arrogance. Armchair quarterbacking is nothing like being there. Dig up the old MPSIMS thread and have a look at how a board full of ubertolerant geniuses reacted to events as they unfolded. A mod had to step in and beg for calm as people called for the heads of Arabs and invasions of foreign states. Plus, the information was wrong, and had to be corrected as the events unfolded. That’s the nature of the thing. Meanwhile, no one is talking about his actual tyrannies — his reckless spending, his disregard for civil rights (not just gay marriage but rights to privacy and so forth), his attacks on freedom of speech through his anal-paranoid attorney general, his broken promises about reducing the size and scope of government, and his interference in free trade and commerce. You’re running around warning people about gnats while a swarm of yellow jackets forms quietly just out of view. Get some sense of perspective and attack what cannot be defended. The point is that every single person on earth is guilty of the sort of things that y’all are slamming Bush about — imperfect memory, possible white lies, hesitation in the face of crisis, and so on. What that means is that Kerry is equally vulnerable because he himself most assuredly will be and has been quilty of these exact same things. You come across as saying that we have to vote for Kerry because he has super powers and will not be susceptible to Clintonesque gaffes or Bush faults. And people don’t have to be rocket scientists to know that that’s bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2004, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432/60 "2004-07-11T12:32:41Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Heaven forbid I should defend the man, but could he not have been referring to having seen the footage of the WTC with a big hole in it, that was shown just minutes after the first impact? I always thought that is what was meant by his statement (I also recall reference to a TV set in the school hall). Nope. It seems pretty clear to me that he means he saw an actual airplane hit the tower. Since he was in the classroom when the second plane hit, it couldn’t have been that one. There are several different conflicting accounts of when and how Bush learned of the first plane crashing. Only Bush’s version invovles a television, yet there wasn’t a television in the hallway. There was a television in the next room, and several of Bush’s staff were watching it, but Bush himself didn’t see that one until after he left the classroom. ======= **December 4, 2001** “I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and **I saw an airplane hit the tower** - the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there’s one terrible pilot. I said, it must have been a horrible accident. But I was whisked off there, I didn’t have much time to think about it.” ======= **January 5, 2002** “Well, I was sitting in a schoolhouse in Florida … and my Chief of Staff – well, first of all, when we walked into the classroom, **I had seen this plane fly into the first building.** There was a TV set on. And you know, I thought it was pilot error and I was amazed that anybody could make such a terrible mistake. And something was wrong with the plane…” ======= **September 11, 2002** Bush himself took part in the historical revisionism. In an extensive video interview shown on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” he again **repeated his bizarre belief that he was watching television when the first crash took place**. ======= It even contradicts what he said that very night. **September 11, 2001** “Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government’s emergency response plans.” This version supports any of the earlier accounts where he knew either while in the motorcade or immediately after arriving at the school and talked to Rice on the phone. It’s pure-d confusion on his part. False Memory Syndrome. Bush Administration Syndrome (if you repeat something enough times, it’ll become true). Is it a lie? Technically, yes, but not a malicious lie. My theory is that it just all got confused in his head, something that law enforcement officers and lawyers are very familiar with. But, when you’re the President of the United States, and you’re supposed to be a clear, fast thinker, this does not inspire confidence, especially when the information that no video of the first plane crash was available is widely-known. Also, when your movements in public are as well-documented as the President’s are, the fact that there are so many conflicting accounts, not even including Bush’s, is mind-boggling. That shouldn’t be. Again, I realize there are many many MANY other issues that Bush needs to be nailed to the wall for. This is somewhat minor in the scheme of things, but history will need to know this stuff. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-day-indeed-bush-on-the-morning-of-9-11/254432.md?page=4)