Fine prove me wrong. Tell me the 3 or 4 actions Bush could have taken which would have made any difference. Seriously, all you have said is that he should have asked a couple more questions. The evidence we have is that he knew something bad happened before he went into the classroom. He learned while he was in there that it was worse than they thought. What do you do in those first 7 minutes following this revelation to make any difference.
Ha! You actually think this video would not have made it on every station as it did? Really? You think he was not acting, or that he should not have acted, as if the cameras were on?
Fair enough.
But it doesn’t. At least it doesn’t say the things you’d like it to say.
As I’ve said, when one is in the middle of something totally unimportant, showing at least some interest in an important event (regardless of how good your people are) is a good idea.
I have a problem with the fact that he made that assumption in the first place.
We’re not in court, and I have said over and over (just as I’ve had to make my other points over and over) that I am talking about the attitude his actions projected.
And so the best response is to “project calm” and not even suggest a course of action? (Or, since the President’s input is so irrelevant in this situation, ask what is going to be done?)
No, I didn’t. Giving the impression that they should leave him alone would have required a resonse, and he didn’t give one.
Notice the phrase “in a manner that says?”
He didn’t ask for any more information, did he? That’s all I was saying, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable. I said nothing about a brush-off. Although I suppose that’s not a terrible interpretation, since he’d made it clear he wanted to finish off his appearance like everything was normal and more interruptions wouldn’t have helped that.
If he was the Principal, not the President, maybe.
Because you evidently feel that this old-ass joke is a clever response. :rolleyes:
Let me show you a response, for contrast.
Evidently Bush’s photo-op was more important than Cheney’s meeting, because Cheney interrupted what he was doing to wonder what was going on and watch the news.
Ah, but this is because we decided we need presidential authroity for the use of Nukes, even in the case of self defence. Are you suggesting that anyone anywhere actually thought this attack might require nukes? Care to suggest any other possibility that would have required presidential authority? You’d be the first.
But as I’ve said again and again, this is something you are adding to the facts. His actions projected a certain attitude “to you”. Except you don’t ever add the last words. The president proposes another possible attitude, I suggest that yours is baseless and you do not answer.
I’m not sure I’ve said definitavely that this is the best response. I am simply making the case that it is not unreasonable. You are the guys saying things like AWOL, negligent, and so forth. You are the ones claiming that no reasonable person could have acted in the way Bush did. Unfortunately, it is all based on your skewed reading of his projected attitude.
Except that Bush had already had a conference with Dr. Rice about the incident, and he had another one with many other people shortly afterwards. Again, you are reading disinterest or incompetence into a “look” or an attitude into an inaction. Your certainly entitled to your interpretation, it only becomes ridiculous when you begin to believe that no other reasonable interpretations are possible.
I GET INFORMED. Was there something he could have done? I DON’T KNOW. Maybe there was. Maybe there wasn’t. The fact that our president didn’t even try (and not just for seven minutes, but longer when he posed for the cameras) is what is so damn disturbing to me and many others.
Here’s the thought process that I’d expect of any normal person, much less the allegedly above-average guy who happens to be the leader of the free world, who’s just been told about the attack.
Holy shit, did I hear Andy right? We’re under attack? By who? Didn’t I read something about threats somewhere? I dunno. What should I do? Is there something I should do? Is there anything I can do? I don’t know. I can’t wrap my mind around this, my God, we’re being attacked, we’re at war, what the fuck? Is it still going on? Am I in danger? What about my family? What’s happening, why isn’t anyone telling me? I can’t stand this, I’ve gotta get out of here and get control of the situation. Okay keep cool, what do I say to these kids to avoid a panic? Oh! I’ll just tell them I got an important call, they’ll understand. Put on a brave face, I don’t wanna scare them. Calm down. Deep breaths.
The above thoughts would take one minute, maybe one and a half.
Yes, really! Do you even know what you’re trying to say? Hello, this video DID exist three years ago, and it did NOT “make it on every station.” Only a small number of folks, mostly those who were doing research and compiling timelines, saw it. In fact, this video was only broadcast on TV after Michael Moore was smart enough to show it in his film.
Yeah, I’d give him a minute to play “cool calm leader” for the cameras. Then I want a president who takes action, even if it’s just finding out what’s going on. Christ, you do realize that this wouldn’t be as big an issue if Bush didn’t constantly tout himself as “SuperWarPresidentMan,” the vigilent, strong, decisive leader of our nation?
Yes. Actually it does. Maybe not to you, who apparently have such staggeringly low expectations of what a commander in chief’s mindset oughtta do in times of crisis that you don’t particularly care what he does. But to an increasing number of people, his inactivity on that day speaks volumes about his attitude, his knowledge of world events, his judgment, his intellectual curiosity, his ability to make quick decisions, and yes, his compassion (God forbid we expect a president to “feel the pain” of his fellow citizens!).
Seven minutes? Fuckit, Bush hasn’t rarely displayed any of those attributes in the three years since.
And before anyone goes “Gotcha Ya!”, I obviously did not intend the double negative up there to say what it, um, does. He has rarely displayed yadda yadda yadda. :smack:
My wife woke me up that morning by yelling out VERY loudly “We’re being attacked.” It scared the crap out of me because by “we”, I thought someone was in our house, so I grabbed a big flashlight and ran into the room. So, at 8:48 or so, my wife (and myself a minute later) were aware that we were being attacked.
Now, I’ll play president for a bit…
First, I get all the information I can about what’s going on. First, I find out that a commercial aircraft has hit the WTC. I also know that it was not an accident, as it was not supposed to be anywhere near NYC. The FAA has already considered it a hijacking. Since I’m still a bit confused, I continue to get as much info as I can.
About 15 minutes later, aircraft number two crashes into the other tower. At this point, we have a bigger problem. It was obviously not an isolated incident. I get on the phone, and shut down every single flight that is taking off, and tell all airborne flights to get their asses on the ground NOW. If there is a single plane not doing exactly that within 5 minutes, I threaten to fire people, from the top down.
We have at this time a list of 11 suspect aircraft. Every other aircraft is responding normally, is completely on course, etc. These 11 aircraft are contacted directly (hell, have the President himself do it for impact), and VERY firmly told to bar their door. Tell them that if the door is opened, their plane will be crashed, and they will die, along with anyone in the building their plane crashes into. Tell them that once their door is barred, to get to the nearest landing strip. If it’s me with an axe and an adrenaline rush against 5 men with box cutters, I like my chances just fine.
By this time, I’ve also made sure we have fighters on all 11 planes, and monitor them very closely. I want them watching the cockpit carefully, and watching for warning signs that something is wrong.
Now, there is one area where I would not blame Bush for having a hard time making a decision. That’s the decision as to whether or not to shoot down a plane. If he had actually shown any motivation when it was needed, I’d forgive him for that call either way. I think I would have had to shoot them down, but can certainly understand how difficult it would be to make that call. I just want him making it, not listening to goat stories.
Here is what a leader does: demand information, make a determination, delegate to the proper people to get that done. Any leader will also tell you that that is the fastest way to get results. If you sit around and let everyone do their own decision making, it never comes together. This is true for CEOs as well as those who lead countries. One person needs to spearhead the operation, even if only at very high levels. Who was that one person on 9/11? I can actually picture various leaders (of various political leanings and in charge of various countries) throughout history in the exact same situation. I can’t picture any of them doing what Bush did. If people had not died, it would be comical.
I truly do not think there is anything he could have done to stop the second plane from crashing into the WTC, as there were still way too many unanswered questions, but I can’t say the same for the other two planes.
To answer your question, 7 minutes was an eternity that day.
“At 9:05 a.m., the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., stepped into the classroom and whispered into the president’s right ear, ‘A second plane hit the other tower, and America’s under attack.’” --David E. Sanger and Don Van Natta Jr., “After The Attacks: The Events; In Four Days, A National Crisis Changes Bush’s Presidency,” The New York Times, September 16, 2001
Where, in that, did Bush “demand information”? Did I miss something when I saw the clip of the 7 minutes? I don’t recall Bush demanding anything. He was told that America was under attack, and continued to sit there, without demanding anything. I hope that when he finally met up with his people he demanded information (or, just as likely, was told what was going on without demanding)… but I don’t see where we have any indication that “the seven minutes passed between the first step, and the second.”
I’ve been in leadership positions in business and I’ve had to deal with my share of unexpected crises, albeit none even remotely approaching the gravity of 9-11.
When an emergency arises a good leader shifts gears and deals with it. Sometimes “dealing with it” means issuing immediate orders. Sometimes it means staying out the way of the people who are actually coping with the details while you gather information and make plans for how to handle the long-term repercussions. Sometimes “dealing with it” means nothing more than taking a few minutes to establish that the crisis isn’t really a crisis after all, and then going back to whatever you were doing before.
“Dealing with it” does not mean sitting on your ass and pretending that nothing’s going on.
On 9-11 my wife was scheduled to fly to France for an academic conference. I heard about the first plane hitting as I was driving to the pool to do some laps. What an awful accident, I thought, but didn’t think it was terrorism and I didn’t alter my plans at all. When I returned to the car after swimming, I turned on the radio and heard that a second plane had hit. Immediately I knew it was a terrorist attack. I also new that it would have serious repercussions for me, my wife, my wife’s career, and possibly my wife’s family (who live in the New York area).
I didn’t sit in my car in stunned silence for seven minutes, or even for ten seconds. I raced home, and turned on the TV news, trying to get as much information as possible. When my wife arrived home a few minutes later she called her parents to make sure they were safe and we immediately began sorting out the implications for her trip being cancelled, contacting colleagues in Europe to cover for her and so on.
I expect the same standard of decisiveness from the President.
When the second plane hit it became immediately obvious that the United States subject to an ongoing terrorist attack of unknown severity and scope. The correct response from the President would to have been to quickly excuse himself from the classroom, get himself to a location of safety, learn as much about the situation as quickly as possible, and begin formulating a response. This is Leadership 101 here, something that you would expect a former military officer, Harvard MBA and corporate CEO to know a little about.
The fact that President Bush was unable to respond effectly to this crisis is not important in and of itself. Anybody can slip up. But it is part of a pattern of laziness and weak leadership that one would think would disqualify the gentleman from holding an office as demanding as that of the presidency.
On 9/11, I sat in front of the TV as if I had been poleaxed. So, too, did much of the country and world. Then again, I’m not an alpha-male dominant leader type (henceforth AMDLT), and I’m sure that places such as the Pentagon and the FAA were a madhouse of activity, as all those AMDLTs were trying to figure out just what the hell was going on and what to do about it. Pres. Bush, on the other hand, had an apparent reaction more like that of most of the country, and as much as the humor of his “deer in the headlights” appearance has been overdone, on that day many of us looked the same way. Could the take away lesson from this be not that he was being “presidential”, but that he really, REALLY, didn’t know what to do, because he isn’t an AMDLT but rather a convenient and pliable figurehead, and was waiting for those around him to tell him what to do?
I thought that might be a given, since it’s ME who is posting. Although it’s obviously not just to me or this thread wouldn’t be four pages long already.
What have I not answered? Yes, you’re proposing something else, and I don’t agree.
And, like many other people here, I’m suggesting maybe we ought to expect a little better from the President.
I’m getting really, really sick of this, pervert. Stop asking me and trying to take me to task for what other people think. I’ve never said Bush was AWOL, and it couldn’t be more irrelevant to this discussion.
We know what Bush says he was trying to do. It was just a stupid thing to try to do in my opinion. I don’t know where you get that I believe no other reasonable interpretations are possible, but whatever, it’s a quick way to call someone closed-minded, and that must be what I am if I don’t agree with yours and Bush’s interpretation of his response.
Perhaps I can put this into some perspective. I work a half-mile from the Pentagon, a portion of which can be seen through our windows. There was absolutely no work going on in our office between 9:03 and 10:30, when everyone was sent home. We simply weren’t capable of concentrating on anything other than the radio, TV, or internet.
The bigger debate here is: should a Sentor be held to a higher standard than everyone else?
I seldom read any threads dealing with politics. Somehow I got lured into this one and it was like a train wreck. I didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t pull away.
First, the OP is absolutely rediculous. I think that’s been well pointed out though.
Second, the Bush bashing for the 7 minutes is only slightly less rediculous. Settle down people.
Personally, I’m of the group that thinks what Bush did in the 7 minutes doesn’t matter much towards the end result. The terrorists were already in place and the planes were in the air. Some good points were brought up about flight 93, but it comes down to opinions. There is no way to know for a fact that anything could have been done.
Remembering back to the days that followed 9/11, I have respect for the way Bush and Giuliani handled their situations during that time. I don’t think I was alone since Bush’s approval rating climbed during that period. I did a quick search and found a source saying that it was over 90% in some polls.
There might be plenty to bash Bush over, but I don’t think his handling of 9/11 is one of them. I realize that many of you feel strongly about politics. This kind of nitpicking and overanalyzing really just makes people sound like those red faced evangelists you can find on TV. It gives the arguments presented about the same credibility as the mentioned evangelists.
Only because I find being vaugely compared to an evangelist so insulting, I’ll ask- you said you watched the thread, but did you read it? Everything you posted has been dealt with repeatedly. It could have gone on page one.
Nobody said it did matter. (Maybe one person?)
Obviously.
Obviously.
I suppose that does relate to this, so what is it they did that you respect?
I think that has a lot more to do with fear and the so-called “rally round the flag” effect than anything else.
I reckon that now is as good time as any to bash Bush for what he does in New York later this month.
Visiting Ground Zero
What a media whore! He should be ashamed for using such a solemn and stately place for nothing more than a photo opportunity. It was sheer grandstanding, just like he did on the aircraft carrier.
Not Visiting Ground Zero
What a slap in the face to all the people whose lives were lost on that tragic day! He should be ashamed for snubbing the site of one of the most significant events in American history. He probably just wanted to dodge questions about what he was doing in the Florida school that day.
Yeah, gee, its a tough job being President. Darned if you do, doggoned if you don’t. Thing is, Lib, the po’ boy wasn’t drafted. He volunteered, he campaigned, he implored, he beseeched, he kissed the baby and he kissed the butt.
Besides, most of his problems derive from eroded credibility, a problem he fosters by his self-destructive behavior, i.e., opening his mouth.
The Pubbies decided to tie thier convention to Ground Zero months ago, back when they saw nothing but blue skies and rolling over the Dems like Sherman through Georgia. Back when GeeDubya’s approval rating was second only to Jesus, and he was gaining. This problem derives directly from thier own political greed, to sweep every political poker chip on the table into their pile.
Tough noogies. Let them taste the sweetness of karma, and repent.
While this has gone on for a long time – Oliver Cromwell quote: You have sat here too long. Be gone – perhaps it is time to insert a smarmy historical reference as an analogy.
It is Four O’clock in the afternoon on July 3, 1863, in the fields south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. A great infantry assault has swept across those fields toward enemy positions on a rise of land extending south from the town cemetery. The assault is made up of six or seven infantry brigades, three of them under the direct command of Major General George Pickett who is the over all commander of the whole assault. The assaulting formations have been terribly torn by artillery fire and now are confronting infantry musketry. The assault is bogging down, casualties are mounting and a forlorn hope storming party has been swallowed whole by the opposing force. Enemy formations are beginning to march out to enfilade both flanks of the assaulting force.
The crisis has arrived. General Pickett has been riding with his staff a hundred yards or so behind his assault force. Pickett needs to go forward to rally his broken formations and lead them into a final and perhaps decisive rush on the enemy or organize a coherent retreat. But General Pickett is not a decisive thinker. He is a nice enough gentleman, attractive and personable but lacks the spark to instinctively do the right thing in a crisis. This is known by his corps commander who always takes special care to explain things to him and to send a trusted staff officer to help him out.
General Pickett does not go forward to drive the assault home or to get his people out. Instead he sends staff people to his commanded to ask what he should do and then turns to the rear while his soldiers get themselves out as best they can. He was a good companion and capable enough in dealing with the ordinary but in the crisis lacked the capacity to act decisively or gallantly.
It may well be that Pickett could not have done anything and that the attack was doomed from the start and was fated to suffer 50% losses no mater what General Pickett did. His performance in that crisis, however, was a reliable indication of what the man was made of, that when push came to shove he was a weak reed who was incapable of the instantaneous and decisive action required of a combat leader. In April 1865, sixteen months later at Five Forks near Petersburg, Virginia, he proved his incapacity by bungeling the engagement that led to the retreat that ended at Appomattox Court House.
Does this sound vaguely familiar? Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I his Cromwell and George III … let George III profit from their example.
