All it does is show that there is a lag between people directly involved in an incident (eye witnesses, airline personnel who are in communication with aircraft) and people several steps removed from what’s actually going on (the President).
Apparently, GWB is the first president in history who was supposed to have had instant and infallible intel as to what was going on during his presidency, and the fact he didn’t act on it either proves he was a chimp-puppet or evil mastermind, depending on your personal tastes.
No one is criticizing him for not having perfect, infallible intel. We’re criticizing him for not bothering to become informed about what is known as it was happening, and failing entirely to either gather information or respond to the situation. Even if all he could do is go watch CNN, that’s infinitely better than reading a fucking book to some school kids in the middle of an attack on his country.
Nope. You are the one who is out on the fringe. I have made no claim that Bush made the best choice or that he could not have acted in a better fashion. However, the claims in this thread make it sound as though he chose the absolutely worst possible choice for which he should be consigned to the lowest circles of hell. That is an overreaction.
And you are joining in by asserting things that are demonstrably wrong and then adding your own hysteria to the mix. Nothing I have said can be remotely construed to claim that Bush’s actions cannot be criticized. However, the utter hysteria and hyperbole that describe his behavior as execrable are way out of proportion to his actions, (heck, the OP made that the focus of his complaint), and I am quite prepared to dismiss those who want to pretend that his decision, there, was actually worse than his decision to invade Iraq or any number of other bad choices he inflicted on the country for eight years.
(I have a list of posters to whom you should really send the revelation that I am a conservative.)
Because the assertion continues to be made that there was nothing at all that could have been done at that point, but there was still 20 minutes between Card whispering in Bush’s ear and the initiation of the takeover of Flight 93. There was still 18 minutes before anyone texted a warning to flight 93.
I’m not saying Bush is responsible for not initiating the warning to all planes in the air sooner. I’m not saying he’s responsible for the fact that they didn’t get the message in a more comprehensible fashion than a text that they didn’t understand.
I’m saying he’s responsible for not putting himself in a position in which he even could have done so.
Again, he as a single individual person can’t gather the information - that’s what his Staff is for. Do you believe that any president since LBJ has actually stood over maps and drawn lines on them indicating where troops were to attack? A President’s job is to make high-level decisions. It’s up to his Staff to provide him with the information he needs to make them, and then to carry out his orders based on that information. GWB had no idea what was going on in that 15-20 minute window on 9/11/01 any more than we did because the information his Staff gathered for him was the same we ALL had - CNN, etc. The government doesn’t have magical all-knowing information gnomes who know more than what cameras and people on the street are providing in real-time. Yes, they can speculate on who was behind it, etc. but in that immediate window of All Hell Breaks Loose, knowing who was behind it wasn’t probably really high on the list, it was more important to know what might happen next.
Your inability to even write about this without ludicrous hyperbole is evidence enough of the actual substance of your position. I give you credit for at least avoiding the fucking “panic” stupidity for once.
If he’s reading to some kids, he’s not interacting with his staff. He should be up to date on the latest information. There were definitely high level decisions he’d have to make. If one of those airliners had to be shot down, they’d seek authorization from the president. Let’s say he has to make a split second decision as to whether or not to shoot down an airliner - would you rather have had him getting up to date on everything we know for the last 10 minutes, or reading to some fucking kids?
THERE WAS NO UPSIDE TO CONTINUE HIS DISTRACTION WITH THE KIDS. Even if all he did was listen in on the reports his staff was getting or EVEN JUST FUCKING WATCHING CNN, that would be infinitely better than basically taking a time out to read a fucking frog story.
The idea that CNN had as much info as was available to Bush is the stuff of childish ignorance. CNN had no idea what was overheard on cockpit mikes. They had no idea which jets were scrambled to where. They had no idea what NORAD knew. They had no idea what the daily briefings said or didn’t say.
We’re talking about the first 7-10 minutes. I’ve seen the documentary about what happened that day with the Air Traffic Controllers and the airline’s own direct comms with their aircraft and I have no problem believing that in that time frame that nobody really knew what was happening.
Anyone who thinks differently has never dealt with a Bureaucracy.
Again, you’re just using hindsight. Maybe there was more to know then, but the president wasn’t seeking out such information to stay as current as possible. Saying “there was probably, in retrospect, nothing he could’ve done in that 10 minutes” is no excuse for “he wasn’t trying to find out if there was anything he could’ve done in that 10 minutes”
He could’ve easily had to make a decision on whether to shoot down an airliner or not, and he could’ve fucked up a snap-decision because he was reading a book to some kids in a PR stunt rather than trying to get the most current information as it developed.
There was no way to know, in that time frame, if any other airliners HAD to be shot down. There was no way, in that time frame, to scramble jets TO shoot down airliners. After the first plane hit the tower, the events of the day were already well underway. We MIGHT have been able to shoot down United 93 (and many Truthers think we did) but the first three planes were already too far gone to do anything but watch in horror.
We didn’t know that at the time (I’ll admit to that freely) but since we’re playing the hindsight game, then no - nothing more could have been done.
There was absolutely time to scramble jets to shoot down airliners. The president travels around with a national security crew with all sorts of communications gear that can connect to basically anyone in charge of anything relating to national defense. He can scramble fighters within minutes.
I’m not using hindsight at all. Your arguments boil down to “there was nothing he could do anyway”, which misses the point over and over again. He should’ve been seeking out all information possible to know whether or not there was something he could do, and what would be the wisest decision if he had to make a choice.
There was no upside to continuing to read kids a story during the biggest attack on the United States in decades, and there were obvious downsides. It is also the most important job of the president to seek information and assert leadership in the event of such a crisis.
No, you’re wrong - there are not typically “Alert 5” aircraft on the deck on the East Coast, or anywhere else, in the continental US. Or at least there weren’t prior to 9/11. We DID scramble fighters after the second impact, but there was no time for the crews to get to their planes, launch, and reach suspected target aircraft before it was too late.
Here, take one of these and call me in the morning:
Aircraft were scrambled to intercept commercial airliners that day, and a decision may have been had to have been made about engaging them.
I’m not sure if you’re incapable of understanding the points others are trying to make, or you’ve deliberately decided not to acknowledge them as a strategy of debate. Either way, it makes you a boring, useless person to discuss this with.
Whether or not Bush could’ve actually done something given hindsight is irrelevant to whether or not he should’ve been seeking out as much information as he could at the time it was happening. His job - his most important, primary job - is to be a leader in a moment of crisis such as this, and he deliberately chose to remove himself from that position, to sit the opening minutes of this one out.
Again, there was NO UPSIDE, NO BENEFIT WHATSOEVER, to act in the manner that he did. There were significant downsides. He would not have the most up to date information. He would not be in immediate contact with authorities who could execute orders regarding the current crisis. He would need to be brought up to speed and delay and reduce the quality of any decision he would actually have to make.
He failed to fulfill his leadership role, failed to gain as much information as possible during the biggest attack on his country in decades, and he read a fucking book to schoolchildren while his country was under attack. It is absurd that you, or anyone, would defend this as adequate leadership or say that it wasn’t a mistake. He made the wrong decision regardless of what hindsight tells us of the actual consequences of this decision.
The people who were actually running the country had too much on their plate that morning. They probably regretted later that they hadn’t instructed Bush to make a dignified retreat & at least pretend he was in charge.
As the events of that morning began to unfold, everybody in the world (not cut off from media) wondered what the fuck was going on. Poor, incurious George just sat there with a stunned look, waiting for further instructions.
Small correction: He was not reading to the kids. He was listening to them read.
Why 'W" sat there and read is because the Secret Service did not yank him out, just in case he was in danger. I’ve been to that school. it’s not bomb proofed hardened concrete.
The reason he was left to his own “thoughts” … I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. Is that he was so out of the Loop in the planning of 9/11, that his safety was not even considered. After all Cheney was the real president. and he delayed protecting D.C. even after the attacks were well underway.
I guess Halliburton had quite a bonus for him. He at least “Let it happen”
Call me a Kook.
Any leader worth their shit knows that when a crisis happens you shouldn’t start screaming down the chain of command for information. You trust the people below you to get the information to you. Any time they spend listening to someone who is interrupting them and demanding information, is time they are wasting.
I am not a Bush supporter although I have been accused of such in the past.
Bush made a lot of mistakes both pre- and post-9/11. This is not one of them.
Before the President (liberal or conservative) moves anywhere, especially if there is an imminent threat, the Secret Service clears the area. I can easily imagine this taking seven minutes or more.
Bush deserves a lot of criticism but not for this. Men with guns had him stand to so they could ensure his safety. It took a few minutes. BFD.