# John Kerry did nothing for 40 minutes on September 11th. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 8, 2004, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855 "2004-08-08T04:14:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855/322 "2004-08-14T16:14:46Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > You’ve raised absolutely nothing in contradiction to these arguments other than unsupported denials. Your entire case rests upon the extremely dubious assumption that there was litterally nothing in particular for Bush to be doing for those 7 minutes: not even finding out more information about the sitaution or finding out what his staff were doing in response to it. Can’t forget **pervert** ’s other BS argument - that Bush was reasonably well-informed on the crisis _when he went into the classroom_, and that Card’s ‘update’ was all he needed to bring him up to speed, for the time being. (Reasonably well-informed = believing that a small plane has accidentally flown into one of the WTC towers; update = being told we’re under attack, which is of course not an ‘update’ but a whole new - and unclear - picture.) > [@](#): > > A leader doesn’t just let his staff figure everything out and then tell him what to do. That’s what a figurehead does. Gotta say, that shoe fits him awfully well. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855/323 "2004-08-14T17:52:29Z")
> [@](#): > > A leader doesn’t just let his staff figure everything out and then tell him what to do. That’s what a figurehead does. Damnit, now you’ve got that song going through my head again: **A wizard’s staff has a knob on the end, knob on the end, knob on the end A wizard’s staff has a knob on the ennndddd! What he does with it is magic!** ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2004, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855/324 "2004-08-15T00:22:27Z")
NORAD **had** no pre-existing policies for what to do if people hijacked planes and flew them into buildings. He was going to have to _create_ those policies, on the spot, by the seat of his pants. [/QUOTE] But once again, the president was not going to “create” such policies himself. He was going to listen to his national security people and approve a plan made up mostly by them. Moreover, he was in no way going to do this while the attack was gonig on. He was probably not going to do this until the next day at the earliest. The only function he had that day, in this regard is that he needed to assure the American people that such a policy would be created and pursued to the utmost. Oddly enough he did this too. > [@](#): > > He claims to have ordered the infamous August 6 PDB as a result of the threats to the G-7 summit in Italy in July, where high on the list of > anticipated threats was that of terrorists…flying planes into buildings! Possibly, but those were planes which were anticipated to come from outside the US. Not reallyu the same thing at all. Again, this is a complaint with a modicum of truth, but to be really damning, you have to drop the context. > [@](#): > > I remember hearing that first statement over the radio. (No TV in my office.) It referred to the attack in the past tense, as if it was over - and then, a few minutes later, Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon. > > If he had been on the job, rather than wasting time, _he might have been aware of the **possiblity** that the attack was still ongoing_. Again, you have to drop context to come to this conclusion. Why do you insist on doing this? Assuming your time line is correct, he was talking about the attacks that had occured. Sheesh. Why is this so hard to undrstand? ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2004, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855/325 "2004-08-15T00:25:24Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > So, 48 minutes after understanding that this is not a fluke, and that we’re actually under attack, he begins to make major decisions. One more plane crashed during that interlude, while another hadn’t yet. At that time, there were concerns that up to 11 planes were suspect and could be involved. I, for one, feel much better that he was busy projecting calm during that period as opposed to finding out the facts or making any decisions. Dude. Do you guys even speak english anymore? I don’t mean to be insulting, but you just said he was moving during the major portion of that 48 minutes. This would be a time of lower communication. Also, he most certainly was in contact with some of his people, read the 9-11 commission report. Yet, you drop all of this and suggest that he was neither in contact nore making decisions during that time. Is that really fair? At all? ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2004, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855/326 "2004-08-15T00:26:59Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Can’t forget **pervert** ’s other BS argument - that Bush was reasonably well-informed on the crisis _when he went into the classroom_, and that Card’s ‘update’ was all he needed to bring him up to speed, for the time being. Can you do me a favor from now on, please quote me when characterizing my argument. It is disengenuous of you to characterize it whithout doing so. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2004, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855/327 "2004-08-15T00:51:11Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > pervert, I have come to the conclusion that you don’t actually believe what you are arguing for, and are just being contrarian. I do enjoy being contrarian. But I am not doing so in this thread. So, forgive how this sounds, but the problem is on your side. Please try to look at the available data from another perspective. You may find that one or more of your assumptions is not true. > [@](#): > > Your arguments make no sense (" To say he had no way to know this is to assume he did not how his staff worked."???), they just constitute flat denials and an incoherent way to fill space after those denials. No, wrong again. Allow me to explain. > [@Apos](#): > > > [@pervert](#): > > > > No. […]\*, simply going into the next room would not have provided him with any data which required his imperitive attention. > > He had no clue whether or not this was true, and it most certainly was NOT true. To which I replied: > [@](#): > > To say he had no way to know this is to assume he did not how his staff worked. The point is that if you want to assume that Bush had “no clue” that imperitive information might be waiting for him in the next room, you have to assume that he had no knowledge of how his staff worked. At the least you have to assume that his staff would simply hold onto imperitive information without telling him they had such. The fact that he had talked to them before, they had talked to him (briefly) during and he talked to them immedieately after tends to disprove this. I agree it does not disprove it completely, but it does demonstrate that he had more than a passing figurehead relationship with his staff. > [@](#): > > He declined to seek any of it. Declined to try and take on his role as a leader in a crisis. You’ve raised absolutely nothing in contradiction to these arguments other than unsupported denials. This is not true. I have quoted the 9-11 commission report often. > [@](#): > > Your entire case rests upon the extremely dubious assumption that there was litterally nothing in particular for Bush to be doing for those 7 minutes: not even finding out more information about the sitaution or finding out what his staff were doing in response to it. A leader doesn’t just let his staff figure everything out and then tell him what to do. That’s what a figurehead does. Ok, but what actions could Bush have taken to inform himself? Seriously, what would he have learned by moving into the next room? How about I turn this around. Your entire case rests on the assertion that some information was available or could have been available in the next room during those 7 minutes. Yet neither you or anyone else has offered any proof or even a conjecture of what that information might have been. Moreover, you have offered no reason to beleive that Bush was so disconected from his staff that he had 0 reason to beleive that his staff might be holding important cards without telling him. > [@](#): > > How is it not true? Did Card insert a data device into Bush’s ear with his tongue when he whispered to him? Because Bush had talked to his people before the classroom meeting. Therefore he knew top national security people were doing their utmost to find out all that could be found out. Since Card did not give him any other information, it is reasonable to assume that Bush could have assumed that no imperitive presidential decisions were awaitng his attention in the next room. Care to conjecture as to what sort of presidential decisions those might have been? \*I want to applogize for the portion I deleted from my own quote. It was not really called for, and beyond the civil tone this thread has taken so far. I’m having some issues outside the boards right now, and they seem to be tainting my attitude here. I’m going to take a break for a couple days from this thread at least. Please allow me to appologize for the acerbic tone my last several posts have taken, and allow me to say I’m sorry if any of you were offended. To be clear, I agree that he had no way to know every little detail of what was available in the next room. But he did certainly have some reason to believe that no actions requiring presidential authority, nor any information which would substantially alter his understanding of the situation were waiting for him outside the room. The point is that in order to build these 7 minutes into any sort of useful attack against Bush, you have to over emphasize some of the facts and ignore others. It is simply partisan politics which allow you to do so with such a profound lack of humor that you can see not humor in the OP. I have said a few times, I don’t particularly object to partisan politics, I do, however, require that on admits one is doing so. I am being pretty partisan in this thread, for instance. I have pushed the boundries of logic a few times. But never to the breaking point, and never without recognizing the humor in the posts of others who have made jokes out of it. **elucidator** has made some pretty good ones, for instance. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2004, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855/328 "2004-08-15T01:22:45Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > Dude. Do you guys even speak english anymore? I don’t mean to be insulting, but you just said he was moving during the major portion of that 48 minutes. This would be a time of lower communication. Also, he most certainly was in contact with some of his people, read the 9-11 commission report. Yet, you drop all of this and suggest that he was neither in contact nore making decisions during that time. Is that really fair? At all? Ah, an insult followed by an “I don’t mean to be insulting”, which is usually the sign of a lost debate. I’m just going by what he says. Moving or not, he says he got on the phone on Air Force One to find out the facts and finally start making major decisions. We’re talking about the POTUSA, who has a vehicle with him with a singular purpose, state of the art communications, not Joe Schmoe in his Civic with a 1995 era cell phone. Are you implying that he is incommunicado while traveling by motorcade? Hell, he saw the first plane hit the tower on television when it happened, a luxury none of the rest of the country had. Damn, that’s a hell of a system. I’m damned glad to Bin Laden didn’t approve the original plan, which involved 10 aircraft instead of 4. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2004, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855/329 "2004-08-15T02:29:08Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > To which I replied:The point is that if you want to assume that Bush had “no clue” that imperitive information might be waiting for him in the next room, you have to assume that he had no knowledge of how his staff worked. Why? This is nonsensical. He can’t have known what his staff was up to. He’d only been working with them for a few months, and none of them had ever faced anything like this before. > [@](#): > > At the least you have to assume that his staff would simply hold onto imperitive information without telling him they had such. Good grief, he’s the President, not their manservant. His job is to decide what’s imperitive and what’s not. In short, to lead. > [@](#): > > This is not true. I have quoted the 9-11 commission report often. None of which was on point. > [@](#): > > Ok, but what actions could Bush have taken to inform himself? Seriously, what would he have learned by moving into the next room? How about I turn this around. Your entire case rests on the assertion that some information was available or could have been available in the next room during those 7 minutes. Yet neither you or anyone else has offered any proof or even a conjecture of what that information might have been. Moreover, you have offered no reason to beleive that Bush was so disconected from his staff that he had 0 reason to beleive that his staff might be holding important cards without telling him. You’re attempting to weasel out of the actual case. In hindsight, it doesn’t matter whether there was or wasn’t something Bush could have done. At that time, nobody knew. In a future situaiton, there might well be something that could be done. > [@](#): > > Because Bush had talked to his people before the classroom meeting. Therefore he knew top national security people were doing their utmost to find out all that could be found out. Since Card did not give him any other information, it is reasonable to assume that Bush could have assumed that no imperitive presidential decisions were awaitng his attention in the next room. But this is nonsense. This was a national crisis. It’s not a moment for the President to go “well, I assume everything’s going ok, so I assume that what I’m doing is more important so I’d better keep doing it. I better not risk cutting this photo op short just to find out.” Bush should have wanted to know whether there was more, wanted to get involved, even if his staff weren’t calling for him to get involved (in fact, we don’t know what his staff thought. For all we know, they might well have been just as confused as to why the President didn’t do something, and of course they wouldn’t tell us about that now). > [@](#): > > The point is that in order to build these 7 minutes into any sort of useful attack against Bush, you have to over emphasize some of the facts and ignore others. I think the real point is that people like have staked out claims that Moore is a lair and misleading, and have been forced to stake out a position that this case proves it. Moore may be a liar and my be misleading, but that is utterly irrelevant. The fact that the President sat there for 7 minutes, uninvolved in his nation is a bad thing. It’s not a great world shattering sin, but yeah, it’s a bad thing. It isn’t something we’d want a President to do again in another such national emergency. But you people just can’t bring yourselves to admit it. Cognative dissonance is such a bitch. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2004, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855/330 "2004-08-15T20:17:35Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > Can you do me a favor from now on, please quote me when characterizing my argument. It is disengenuous of you to characterize it whithout doing so. Dude, it isn’t exactly that hard to scroll up and see exactly what you said. If you are claiming I have mischaracterized your argument, feel free to distinguish your argument from my summary. Because there’s absolutely **nothing** wrong, by the standards of this forum, of summarizing someone’s argument in one’s own words, as long as one is basically accurate in doing so. In fact, it can help resolve problems in the debate that originate from one poster’s understanding of another poster’s words. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2004, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855/331 "2004-08-15T20:39:50Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > NORAD **had** no pre-existing policies for what to do if people hijacked planes and flew them into buildings. He was going to have to _create_ those policies, on the spot, by the seat of his pants. But once again, the president was not going to “create” such policies himself. He was going to listen to his national security people and approve a plan made up mostly by them. [/quote] True. But he was going to have to do so very, very quickly, because the attack was still taking place. > [@](#): > > Moreover, he was in no way going to do this while the attack was gonig on. He was probably not going to do this until the next day at the earliest. The only function he had that day, in this regard is that he needed to assure the American people that such a policy would be created and pursued to the utmost. Oddly enough he did this too. So you’re saying that it was fine for our armed forces to respond to the attacks in a state of total confusion (see my earlier post about Rumsfeld’s AWOLness that day, to get a picture of the confusion that was actually transpiring) about how they were allowed to respond, since no policy had been outlined in advance, and nobody was going to make policy until the attack was over. Because the decision of whether to instruct NORAD to shoot down a passenger airliner in US airspace was a **policy decision**. > [@](#): > > Possibly, but those were planes which were anticipated to come from outside the US. Not reallyu the same thing at all. Again, this is a complaint with a modicum of truth, but to be really damning, you have to drop the context. I hate to point out the obvious, but the President was in bumfucking **Italy** at the time. So of course planes that might fly into buildings at the G-7 conference would have been anticipated to come from **Europe** , which is outside the U.S. And if we anticipated a similar attack in the U.S., the logical place for such planes to come from would be North America. Is that so drastically different? Especially after the PDB he ordered came back with “Bin Laden Determined To Strike In United States” as its head? > [@](#): > > Again, you have to drop context to come to this conclusion. Why do you insist on doing this? Assuming your time line is correct, he was talking about the attacks that had occured. Sheesh. Why is this so hard to undrstand? Well, of course he was. How could he talk about the ones that hadn’t occurred yet? The question is not was he talking about the past or the future, but whether he was talking about an ongoing series of attacks in a way that suggested it was ongoing, or was over. Follow the linky and make an argument based on those words he wasted 20 minutes _participating in the drafting of_ - when, by the implication of your own argument, he could have delegated that task, then quickly approving and reading the short statement that his staff drafted for him. ---
**Author:** ![buns3000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c89c15/32.png) [@buns3000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buns3000)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855/332 "2004-08-16T07:38:09Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > So, forgive how this sounds, but the problem is on your side. Please try to look at the available data from another perspective. You may find that one or more of your assumptions is not true. Why not try it yourself? Sheer weight of numbers against you in this thread might tell you something for starters. Now factor in your admission that you will be voting for Bush at the election… You’re the lone subjective voice of reason in the wilderness, _dude_ . Your arguments have gone from poor to the equivalent of “I know you are, but what am I?” > [@pervert](#): > > Quote (elucidator): > I can accept that. My esteem for GeeDubya would go up 50 points if he were to look me in the eye and say “For ten minutes there, I had no fucking idea, 'luci. But I pulled myself together and got on with it”. But he doesn’t. > > No, he says “Gathering my thoughts”. Can you explain the difference? Surely you are not suggesting they are the same thing? If not, can _you_ explain the difference? I think 'luci’s point there is that he could’ve been honest about what was going during those 7 minutes, rather than compounding his inaction with bullshit. Also, I’ll wait for MrMoto to tell me the original post was tongue-in-cheek, as you keep claiming. This theory seems like an after-thought - the only explanation left for the OP after its been shown up as complete nonsense in subsequent posts. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855/333 "2004-08-24T12:19:45Z")
An interesting article about how far Bush is in general from understanding his job: [http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8343](http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8343) ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855/334 "2004-08-24T23:09:54Z")
I did not intend to resurect this thread. But since it popped up, I’ll respond as I promised. I hope I have calmed down enough. I’ll let this post be my last here. Unless you specifically ask me to respond to something. > [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > An interesting article about how far Bush is in general from understanding his job: > > [http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8343](http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8343) Fogive me, but I did not see any mention of Bush’s understanding of his job in that article. The only paragraph I found relevent to this thread was at the end. > [@](#): > > […]Unless the media, the electorate, and the political culture at large can shift their focus off of trivia and on to things that actually matter, it’s a price we may pay again and again. > [@buns3000](#): > > Why not try it yourself? Sheer weight of numbers against you in this thread might tell you something for starters. Now factor in your admission that you will be voting for Bush at the election… You’re the lone subjective voice of reason in the wilderness, dude . > > Your arguments have gone from poor to the equivalent of “I know you are, but what am I?” I’m not at all sure what weight of numbers has to do with anything. Also, FTR, I think I said probably voting for Bush. If not, that is what I meant. To me, my arguments have gone from amused poking of fun to annoyed frustration, to (hopefully) more amused poking of fun. I maintain that the OP was a funny lampoon of the liberal ballyhoo surounding the 7 minutes that Bush spent in a classroom on the morning of September 11th 2001. Further, I maintain that few of the respondants to this thread have “gotten the joke”, precisely because they are unable to see the ridiculousness of judging a President of the United States of America based on 7 minutes. Finally, I offer as evidence of my willingness to examine my own premises that I have acknowledged others contributions to this discussion. > [@](#): > > Surely you are not suggesting they are the same thing? In quality and specificity, no. In essence, yes. “pull[ing] myself together…” is essentially the same thing as “Gathering my thoughts”. > [@](#): > > Also, I’ll wait for MrMoto to tell me the original post was tongue-in-cheek Perhaps you should re read post #244 back on page 5. > [@MrMoto](#): > > C’mon, be reasonable. I don’t defend everything the President does. I just think criticism of these seven minutes is laughable, and started this thread to show just how laughable it all is. > [@RTFirefly](#): > > But he was going to have to do so very, very quickly, because the attack was still taking place. Maybe, but 7 minutes is not even close to a reasonable time frame for such policiy decisions. Military operations are not carried out at the top in the way you seem to think. Policies are not shifted around willy nilly at the time of the operation. At least not from the top down. Certain decisions may have needed Presidential authority. Some sort of order might have done something to change things. But you have yet to propose a reasonable alternative to the days events which could have come about by Bush leaving the classroom before he did. What I’m saying is that there is no policy which Bush could have created 7 minutes earlier which would have made any difference. There is no policy which Bush could have begun discussions about 7 minutes earlier which would have done anything at all. And more to the point, there is no reason to assume that such a policy or decision was awaiting him during those 7 minutes. These to things are true, not because he stayed in the classroom for 7 minutes. These things are true because of the nature of the attacks, and the nature of the bureaucratic control with which the President has authority over the military. > [@](#): > > So you’re saying that it was fine for our armed forces to respond to the attacks in a state of total confusion (see my earlier post about Rumsfeld’s AWOLness that day, to get a picture of the confusion that was actually transpiring) about how they were allowed to respond, since no policy had been outlined in advance, and nobody was going to make policy until the attack was over. Sigh. No, not at all. I would have preffered that we had a policy in place to deal with just such an event. I would have preffered that we had trained our people thouroughly on such a policy. What I am saying is that such a policy did not exist. And the 7 minutes taken in the classroom did not significantly delay its creation. > [@](#): > > Because the decision of whether to instruct NORAD to shoot down a passenger airliner in US airspace was a policy decision. Yes, possibly, but not one which required presidential authority. Can you locate the portion of the 9-11 commission report which suggests that fighter aircraft were in position, willing to shoot, but did not because they did not have Presidential authority? Hopefully, this occured during the 7 minutes we are discussing. 😉 > [@](#): > > I hate to point out the obvious, but the President was in bumfucking Italy at the time. So of course planes that might fly into buildings at the G-7 conference would have been anticipated to come from Europe, which is outside the U.S. > > And if we anticipated a similar attack in the U.S., the logical place for such planes to come from would be North America. Is that so drastically different? Especially after the PDB he ordered came back with “Bin Laden Determined To Strike In United States” as its head? Perhaps we are thinking of different exercises. The one I remember reading about had to do with hijacked international flights invading American airspace. If I am not mistaken, this may have been due to a prejudice of our air defence organizations to think of threats as coming from outside our air space and invading it. The point was that the exercises assumed substantially longer amounts of warning before decisions had to be made. And it assumed that such decisions would be much more closely related to decisions involved in shooting down foriegn military aircraft. > [@](#): > > The question is not was he talking about the past or the future, but whether he was talking about an ongoing series of attacks in a way that suggested it was ongoing, or was over. No, the question is whether or not refering to the attacks which had occured is any sort of evidence at all that Bush was “on the job” or not. It is not. > [@](#): > > Dude, it isn’t exactly that hard to scroll up and see exactly what you said. In this thread, after so many pages, after responding to so many other posters, yes, it is. Simply refer me to the post in question and I will look it up. > [@Apos](#): > > Why? This is nonsensical. He can’t have known what his staff was up to. He’d only been working with them for a few months, and none of them had ever faced anything like this before. Because he had worked with many of these people before. He had very good reasons to believe that they were gathering the information he needed. I agree that he did not know exactly who they were talking to. He did not know what color phone they might be using. He may not even have known for sure if they were using secure lines. But I think it is absolutely ridiculous to conjecture that Bush “can’t have known what his staff was up to” in any meaningful sense. Certainly he could assume they were not in the next room twiddling their thumbs. This is at least some idea. > [@](#): > > None of which was on point. Cite? > [@](#): > > You’re attempting to weasel out of the actual case. In hindsight, it doesn’t matter whether there was or wasn’t something Bush could have done. At that time, nobody knew. In a future situaiton, there might well be something that could be done. No, I’m not. And you are right. In a future scenario there might be some decision he could make. Whomever is president will rely, quite heavily I might add, on his staff to provide him with the appropriate information to make such a decision. You are the one proposing that the president has to vet each and every single piece of information or he is some sort of manservant. > [@](#): > > This was a national crisis. It’s not a moment for the President to go “well, I assume everything’s going ok, so I assume that what I’m doing is more important so I’d better keep doing it. I better not risk cutting this photo op short just to find out.” But I never said Bush thought this. What I said is that Bush could reasonably be expected to assume that no decision requiring presidential authority was awaiting him in the next room. I think I have acknowledged that staying in the classroom may not have been the wisest possible strategy. I am simply saying that it was not nearly the dunderheaded blunder you want to characterize it as. > [@](#): > > I think the real point is that people like have staked out claims that Moore is a lair and misleading, and have been forced to stake out a position that this case proves it. Please cite for me the post in which I said Moore was a liar, or that this issue proved it. I have not made this claim. > [@](#): > > The fact that the President sat there for 7 minutes, uninvolved in his nation is a bad thing. It’s not a great world shattering sin, but yeah, it’s a bad thing. It isn’t something we’d want a President to do again in another such national emergency. But you people just can’t bring yourselves to admit it. Cognative dissonance is such a bitch. Well, you tell me. I have admitted this very thing from the begining. You are the one trying to make out that the 7 minutes under consideration are so henious, so agregious, so “eeeeeeeeeeevil” that we must prevent a repeat at all costs. Personally, I think this position is funny. > [@DMC](#): > > Ah, an insult followed by an “I don’t mean to be insulting”, which is usually the sign of a lost debate. My appologies. As I indicated in a previous post, I allowed outside frustrations to boil over in here. I am truly sorry. > [@](#): > > I’m just going by what he says. Moving or not, he says he got on the phone on Air Force One to find out the facts and finally start making major decisions. Quite so. But this does not mean that this was the first time he got on the phone. According to my reading of the 9-11 commission report, this was simply the first time that all of the appropriate agencies were together on a conference call and in possesion of enough information for him to begin making major decisions. Specifically, this means that the 7 minutes we are haranging each other over is even less important. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-did-nothing-for-40-minutes-on-september-11th/258855.md?page=16)