An Interesting Day, indeed (Bush on the morning of 9/11)

The BBQ Pit
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Well, those would be the kind of idiots who claim “I wasn’t sure who I was going to vote for but then Michael Moore/some other damn liberal did something that makes me realize I should vote for Bush! Take THAT!” Well, they’re liars, and if they’re not, and if they’re really that stupid, fuck 'em.

Goddess knows, yes, Bush has done TONS of stuff that would make any decent, intelligent person weep with despair. Those things are being talked about elsewhere.

I opened this thread just to point out the “An Interesting Day” web page, to not have it get lost in another thread, but not have any talk it inspires overwhelm other talk elsewhere. It’s contained. I’m in on this because for 2 days in my life, this is what I’m interested in and focusing on. It’s not like I have been or will be shouting from the rooftops for days or months on end. Tomorrow I’ll be on to something else.

I do have perspective.

Um, I don’t believe I’ve ever said much of anything about Kerry, let alone going around touting him as a paragon of gaffe/fault-free virtues and stumping for votes. I’m anti-Bush, not necessarily pro-Kerry. I don’t know enough about him to be pro, other than he’s not Bush and has a better chance of winning than Nader or anyone else. You’re calling bullshit for something that has nothing to do with me or anything I’ve ever written.

I have no doubt Kerry, if he were elected, which I very much doubt, will make many human mistakes. At least he won’t be an idiot tyrant.

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This is straight out of the GOP talking points. Problem is that to them, and morons like you that support them, everything negative is inconsequential trivia. Shove it up your ass.

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Well, then I stand corrected. Could you point me to those threads because I would love to participate in them and bash the tyrant for actual tyranny.

Assuming you are not a webbot that exists to nip at my ankles, you are a living example of the maxim that it is better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. From the post that you skimmed: “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.”

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I think that it’s been pointed out to you before that the “nipping at ankles” thing:

a) is getting very tired

b) makes you sound like a paranoid loon.

Gee, it’d be nice if you posted actual arguments about those things in threads that dealt with those subjects, instead of using them in an attempt to paint yourself as sympathetic, whilst desperately trying to change the subject.

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You mean like this thread for instance? By my search, I have reminded people of the tyranny they face 20 times in the past two weeks alone. What a supid fucking moron you are to chastise me for changing the subject from reading the tea-leaves in Bush’s facial expressions to condemning him as an actual tyrant.

That makes 21.

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Wow. You made a couple of posts about your giant sentient squid nonsense, and you now try to claim that you were actually protesting about Bush or Ashcroft or something. Pretty impressive. :rolleyes:

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You’re one of those rare hopeless louts whose brain is both thick and empty.

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Wipe your mouth, Lib, the foam is showing.

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Hey, don’t I get an apology on this?

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  1. I’d posted that prior to you backing off of the targeting the school tangent.

  2. I’d read your post as a condemnation of Bush 'cause by staying at the school, he made it a target. So, my point was that him personally staying there (had they been targeting the school) did nothing to raise or lower the threat to the school at that time. If it had been a target it would have remained a target. I did’nt get that you thought they should have evacuated the school.

But since you’ve backed off of the ‘school was another target’ tangent, all is moot (I thought it was not a likely scenario myself).

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I think you’re neglecting people’s concern here that what we have is not imperfect memory, but a deliberate re-writing of events to make the President appear much more decisive and active and involved than he actually was. If all of this had been publically acknowledged from the start, people wouldn’t have much to go on at this point. But the reality is, Bush’s people actively worked hard, directly against the facts, to paint him in a way plainly contradicted by the facts and experiences of everyone involved. The normal counter-balances to this spin, the media and his political enemies, were cowed, and did not respond or challenge in the way they are normally wont to do. The checks and balances of our society didn’t function.

A large part of what makes tyranny possible is the creation and maitience of the illusion of a fearless and irreplacibly necessary leader who knows what’s best and must be left to his own devices. I agree that this or that gaffe may seem like a silly thing to obsess about, but remember that it was in large part the creation of the “Bush, savior of America” persona that allowed him to push through all the things he did. So, in that sense, things like this are not, after all, totally irrelevant. They are, in fact, pretty significant to the explanation of how he was able to accomplish many of the things we normally would have thought unthinkable in American society and politics.

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Yes, of course. In fact, I apologize for having neglected to apologize.

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As I’ve said many times before, it’s not the President’s job to worry about his own safety, and I don’t fault Bush for not leaving the school (though I do fault him for not ending the photo-op immediately and going off to, you know, be President). But the SS should rightly have some egg on its face for not rushing him out of there as soon as they realized that terrorists were actively organizing unstoppable air attacks, and the President was in a known and undefended location. I hope the SS has learned from this mistake.

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No argument from me there. But isn’t Kerry also being cast by most people here as an irreplaceably necessary leader without whom America will fall apart? One thing to note is that, among the alleged conspirators is the school principal. Do you really feel like she cooperated to revise history?

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Most people see Kerry as irreplacible only in the sense that at this stage in the game he’s the only one who can replace George Bush via our electoral process. And I don’t think America will fall apart without Kerry. In fact, that’s what’s sort of scary: the way in which it will not fall apart, but yet change to a degree that I don’t want to see happen.

Her quotes reveal a confused woman, confused in just such the forgivable human way you rightly acknowledge. But her quotes didn’t just lie there on the page. Bush’s own people, who have timelines running for everything, certainly knew what was what much better than she did. And the plain fact of the matter was that she was wrong, and the account given was wrong, and nobody credible challenged it for far too long whilst the Bush retainers minted a new President out of these bogus re-tellings. I don’t think I credit conspiracy as much as I do the breakdown of the normal processes of checks and balances in our society which rein in everyone’s partisan natures to play up their own team and play down their own faults, even in their own memories: critical questioning was unpatriotic, worrying about little stuff was a gift to the enemy. And yet, this little stuff was not ignored by the Bush camp as they suggested the rest of us do. It was played up, big time.

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Any time we have Lib, tomndebb and wring all in disagreement with a point of Bush criticism, it’s prudent to seriously reconsider that point. Not because those worthies are likely to be absolutely correct when they agree, but because, whether you consider all three to be as generally perspicacious as I do, that’s three rather disparate “liberal” pov’s from people who dislike Bush all coming up with similar reasons to excuse his actions on 9/11.

I think this means we legitimately have to work harder to explain the importance we perceive in these seemingly trivial criticisms. I’ll give a go at outlining two reasons I think rigorous criticism of the President’s actions on September 11, 2001 is as relevant to our democracy (and beyond)* as similar criticism of Bush administration actions prior to the attacks and subsequent to them.

First, there is the relatively minor (but not inconsequential) matter of historical accuracy. As demonstrated in this thread, there are so many inconsistencies in accounts and reports from that day that no objective picture can be drawn even three years down the road. All the probing and questioning in the world will be quite useless decades from now if essential facts are left unresolved now because we disdain the pettiness of examining the minutae of our Commander in Chief’s leadership during national crisis.

Secondly, and much more imporantly as always, the political ramifications of close public examination of this self-described War President’s actions under attack are incalculable. It frankly stuns me that the crucial use of the logic of political image by this administration, and by the right in general over the past 25 years, is given such short shrift by many of the posters I most admire on this message board (both liberal and conservative) for their political insight.

Here is the reason why this most miserable of President’s approval ratings are still above 45% in even the lowest polling results: he is popularly perceived as decisive and strong in his anti-terror leadership. Purely and simply, his political image is wrapped around the iconic characteristics of the fictional American Cowboy, and he is both derided by the left and (more importantly) feted by the right for those obstensible features of his personality-- uncomplicated moral assurance… decisive action… stubborn adherence to the “right path” whether the posse’s with him or not…

The perception of strength and decisiveness has been pushed like no other single feature of the President or his administration by the White House and their friends in the conservative punditry since Day 1 of his ascendancy, and no other event even comes close to the utility of 9/11 in that marketing effort. And the marketing plays very well to middle America.

If the marketing of the President as a strong and decisive leader on the day America was attacked and afterward can be revealed as deceitful to “middle America”, his defeat in November will be assured. Doesn’t matter really who his opponent is, or how many spoilers are also on the ballot. That political image is all the Bushies have; there’s no substance behind it, and there are ample counterexamples which will become quite prominent if that one shining image is reduced to reality.

If you care one way or the other about a second Bush term of office, then I can’t imagine why you would consider the OP’s “Interesting Day” of no importance. And if you perceive this administration to be as deceitful and villanous as I do, then I do not understand your resistance to the revelation of their “trivial” deceits along with the larger ones; it is the very banality of evil which makes it so insidious, is it not?

*[sub]Not to put too fine a point on it, but the consequences of Election 2004 will be truly global.[/sub]

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And isn’t it significant that the false memories of not only the school principle but administration officials as well coincide in that they “remember” Bush doing what I daresay almost anyone would expect and truly hope a good leader would do during crisis? They all say he almost immediately excused himself from the class and went to deal with -or at least get informed about- this concerted attack on his country.

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I’ve obviously not explained myself well here.

  1. I believe that Bush erred in remaining at the school. Regardless of other concerns or even if there was literally nothing he could do at the time, to have maintained the ‘routine’ schedule at the point where you know decidedly that it’s not a ‘routine’ day, was politically a stupid move, and frankly, I think the major reason certain folks were so rigorous in their attempts to keep F911 from the screen.

  2. My point in this thread was a very narrow one in that it appeared to me that the OP was deriding Bush for remaining at the school, thus making the kids targets (assuming that the school was a target), ie, that Bush should have left, and there fore the kids would have been safe. It was not clear to me that the OP thought the entire school should have been evacuated (in the unlikelhood that it was a target).

]3. I agree w/my esteemed colllegue xeno about the importance of November globally, and nationally.

  1. The things that terrify me more than the Republican machinations are : liberals crowing and dancing in July as if the election were over; liberals making just as outrageous claims as Bush did in his march to Bagdad (not claiming this thread is one), etc. this is a time to work together, be inclusive etc.

Things I think all US citizens should be horrified about: A. people being held for years under US control w/o access to outside scrutiny of courts, judges etc. that we’re not allowed even to know numbers of detainees, ages or regions. that even with SCOTUS stating (nearly unanimously) ‘they must have redress through the courts’, they’re still setting up military tribunals, w/o lawyers (to my understanding also a requirement from SCOTUS)
B. that our military forces have been stretched so thinly that routinely the troops have had to extend their tours, domestic based National Guard troops are on extended foreign campaigns, reservesist called up, folks who’d left the military have been reactivated. Recruitment goals are being adversely affected (and I have no idea if the recruitment ‘goal’ had been lowered in expectation of folks not wanting to sign up). We’re no longer privy to pictures of returning coffins, and stats on casualties are not widely publicized (usually only the deaths, not the total lost to injuries etc.). From what I’ve heard from the local vet reps, theres’ gonna be tons of young people missing limbs coming home. This will have a vast rippling effect on our economy for years to come .
C. That the Justic Department seems to have the time to focus on abortion cases, right to die vs. national security. But don’t we feel safer now that we have the color scheme going.
D. Long standing allies of ours seem to be distancing themselves from us.

  1. I also agree w/**xeno[/x] that the whole ‘cowboy leadership’ thing is vitally important to their game play. They should, however, IMHO, stop witht eh “Kerry’s a flip flopper” since there’s ample evidence, and recent too, of Bush flip flopping ina more public way (“no, Condi’s not gonna testifiy under oath, yes she will”, “No, Dick and I won’t appear before the commission, ok we will, but only for an hour, ok for as long as we need” “no, we don’t need a commission to look into 9/11, ok we do”)
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As a minor nitpick, since this point is being brought up about the school and why the President stayed there and whether he should have left to protect the kids.

Anytime the President makes an appearance on the ground it’s planned well in advance and one of the things they do is make sure nothing is flying around him at that point. The Secret Service creates a little safety balloon around him for things like this, making sure the food is prepared under supervision of agents and no person or vehicle enters without their clearance, etc. Having created that balloon months in advance and having developed plans for protecting him from any assassination attempt at the school, they probably told him to stay there because it was the safest place to be.

It’s one thing to have inaccurate reports from air traffic control and etc. around the country, and it’s something entirely different to believe that they didn’t know about every aircraft flying around the President.

As far as staying and reading the book to the kids, I would assume he was told to do that as a standard procedure. They make what they do look easy, but having been around a few secure events in my life, I can tell you they check everything out to a degree that would seem ridiculous under any other circumstances. As experts in assassination ourselves, our various agents know exactly how easy it is to kill a world leader. They don’t change plans until new plans are made, period. Unless it becomes unsafe for some reason, there’s no reason for them to change that, and it would probably be irresponsible to do so. Plenty of people in the global power game have died as a result of nothing more important than using the wrong spoon, walking into the wrong bathroom, or picking up the wrong book.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he was told in the motorcade on the way there and they decided to go ahead with it until they figured something else out. Everything that entered into his planned environment at the school was carefully checked beforehand, down to the hallways he was going to use, and the children who were going to be there. They would have had extraction plans and contingencies for possible assassination already set up. If they still do things they way they did back in the 1980’s, there were also two pilots sitting in a ready room with their gear on since 5 AM with fueled jets ready to go within a few minutes reach. They plan for everything from an object that may be coated with a nerve agent, to a thermonuclear war.

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From the Secret Service website: