The President Lied about Risks to His Safety!

Great Debates
1

I’m so angry. When the WTC disaster happened, and the president was running all over the country rather than coming back to Washington, it just seemed somehow not right. In my mind, there was a picture of the King and Queen of Englad touring the rubble of a section of Buckingham Palace during WW2, and yet vowing to stay in London with their subjects. Bush’s actions were an embarassing contrast to that, and people began to rightly critize him for his scared rabbit run across the country.

Then his staff told everyone that Air Force One and the White House had been the terrorist’s targets, they told us that someone had called with threats, someone who knew top secret code words. The criticizim of Bush died down. The explanation sounded fishy, but oh well. Now they’ve quietly admitted that they lied. Here’s an article about it:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/27/spin/index1.html

I feel angry and disillusioned. I didn’t vote for the President, but in a time of war I at least want to believe that he puts our country’s well-being above his own fears. Sorry for any mispellings, I’m just very upset about this.

2

Without reading the article (I’m a little blurry-eyed right now) I was disappointed in how Bush handled the opening hours and days of the crisis, and I’m not a Dubya hater. I understand that the Secret Service can be super-aggressive in carrying out their job, but the Prez IS the boss in the end. My comment at the time was that even Stalin, when the Nazis were a dozen miles from the gates of Moscow, stood up on that area–I don’t know what to call it I think it was in Red Square, you know where the Politburo watched parades–to calm the populace. And I think that the prez should have visited NYC sooner than he did. But I think it’s all water under the bridge now.

3

I can only hope that this is the worst lie that gets told about 911 and the events that it will spawn, but undoubtedly it won’t.

How stupid is this? Would any reasonable American have begrudged Dubya the ability to go to a secure location to get some assurances that there wasn’t a plane really on the way to blow up his house? Why make up stories about it? “The President was taken to the nearest secure military base and then to NORAD until such time as the situation regarding his safety could be fully addressed. When his secure return to Washington could be reasonably guaranteed, he returned.” That’s all that needed to be said. I had an idea that the AF1 and White House were targets story was false as soon as I heard it.

We’ll see if this dishonesty returns to haunt Dubya in 2004 when the bloom is off the “war on terrorism” rose.

4

Q:

A:

5

For the last time, I swear to God. Read this article summarized here:

Eqyptian President and the Deputy Prime Minister of Italy have said that they were aware of a threat from Osama bin Laden’s network to kill President Bush last July.

Now, if you’ve all read this thoroughly, you’ve reached the point where it indicates the specific threat concerned, are you ready, a plane loaded with explosives. Just amazing that on September 11, when we have planes behaving in an incredibly similar manner the President’s safety should be an issue. Just frickin’ amazing.

6

For pete’s sake, try this cite.

7

I’ve always dislike the policies and his personal history, but I find it hard to find fault with him keeping his head down for a few hours. To quote the old man, it was the prudent thing to do. We are in war, and the worst thing we can do in war is lack discipline. We need to follow his battle plan, and so far he hasn’t messed things up, so he’s got my support in bringing these war criminals to justice.

But I will not forget that he deserted the Air National Guard after having his daddy arrange for him to get one of the two openings available from 10,000 applicants. I applaud any man who finally sobers up, even in his mid-40s, and I might even hire him (or her), but not as President. I cannot believe a majority of Americans voted for him.

8

This is a grand example of taking things out of context.

9

Oh, for cripes sake. I am going to preface this, not that I should have to, with the fact that I am a Democrat, voted for Gore, and have been more or less pissed off at Bush’s domestic policy ever since he took office. No, probably before that.

That having been said, I think Bush did the smart thing, which is to remove himself from a place of danger at a time when nobody knew what the next target was. As it turns out, the next target was the WHITE HOUSE, except a bunch of people on a plane over Pennsylvania thwarted that goal. Would it have been brave and noble of Bush to have stayed in the White House when God only knows how many terrorist-controlled planes were still in the air? No, it would have been stupid and moronic. And maybe I’m showing my Democratic bias here, but frankly it’s what I would have expected. But no, he (or maybe his Secret Service guys) did the smart thing, and got somewhere safe, so that at a time of utter crisis and chaos in this nation, we also didn’t lose our head of state.

And FYI, I saw video on the news of Bush picking his way through the WTC wreckage too. If the King and Queen had known that a bomb was headed straight for Buckingham Palace, would they have stayed in it? Probably not, unless they were total freaking idiots.

10

Uh, MsWhatsit, did you even read the article that I linked to? The White House wasn’t a target. The president’s spin doctors lied, that’s what makes me so angry, that at a time like that they felt the need to tell lies to boost his reputation. I’m not old enough to remember the Vietname war or Richard Nixon, but I’m not naive, and yet this disrupts my view of the world, and of our leaders. It makes me angry, and also disappointed.

And yes, the king and queen stayed there even though they knew it might be bombed, out of loyalty to their fellow Britons.

11

Once again NaSultainne you miss the point, threats in italy against all G8 leaders do not amount to verifiable, credible or real information that Airforce one was a target on 9/11.

MsWhatsit, there is no evidence at this point that the last plane was headed for the whitehouse. In any case he had ordered it to be shot down. Perhaps you are confusing it with the other dubious story regarding the plane which hit the pentagon. Initial spin had it that this plane was headed for the white house but had difficulties so took the pentagon as a secondary target. Flight data suggests this has the same foundation as the phone call.

As for why it made a difference, my initial thoughts were that it didn’t but I am slowly revising that position. It isn’t that Bush wasn’t in Washington showing he was in charge. It was that the reaction was one we would expect at the onset of a nuclear war. As bad as the day was, that made it worse.

I have been startled by the magnitude of the economic consequences of the attack. With benefit of hindsight I am starting to wonder if the administrations actions following the attack were well advised in a number of areas.

12

Frankly, I’m disappointed about this phony call. But even though this specific phone call did not take place, it does not follow that his actions were unreasonable or cowardly. The article NaSultaine links to confirms that the possibility of an attack on him was credible.

It’s easy to look at this in 20/20 hindsight and accuse him of cowardice for not flying to DC or visiting NY sooner. That’s quite different from being in the midst of a developing situation involving a coordinated attack where nothing is known for sure.

We were all afraid of more attacks. I was. You were. But beyond the original incidents, no more people have been killed. Does that make us cowards? Many people are now avoiding air travel. Are they cowards?

As noted below the article, it was written by Jake Tapper who is “the author of ‘Down and Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency.’” I do not accuse him of inaccuracy, but he obviously has an axe to grind and may be presenting facts in a light that supports his position.

I think you aren’t completely disillusioned yet because apparently you still think other politicians won’t try to spin something in similar circumstances. Some will. You’re shocked, I’m sure.

You’re free to make remarks like this. However, to use a familiar phrase, such remarks don’t help the situation. Neither would remarks about a certain ex-President and the draft.

13

The King of England and his consort were not the leaders of government of Britain in WWII so the situations are not comparable.

Quite frankly I’m far from admiring Bush but I think he did the right pragmatic thing which was to keep himself safe to lead the country. If he had been assassinated on 9/11 how much worse chaos would the country have plunged into? Better a live leader than a dead symbolic hero IMO.

14

I know that there are other politicians who’ve also not handled this very well. I wasn’t paying much attention to local news that day, but one of my friends said that Governor Glendening called in the National Guard to protect… the governor’s mansion. Not Baltimore City, not BWI, not Hopkins Medical Center, not any important buildings, but his own home.

In stark contrast, Mayor Giuliani has been everywhere since the tragedy. He’s at ground zero, he’s on tv, he’s at funerals. That’s what a leader should be like. I hope he runs for president someday.

15

Yes, and if Mayor Giuliani is elected and something happens to the country that could possibly threaten him, I hope he has the good sense to lay low for awhile.

Nocturne (who is decidedly moderate in her political stance and wouldn’t have voted for Bush.)

16

The White House IS a secure location. Cheney was down in the nuclear blast-proof command facility below the White House called “The Tube” running the country while Bush was running for cover. Bush should have been down in The Tube, telling Cheney to go upstairs and see if the coast was clear.

George W. Bush is a coward.

17

I wouldn’t have been bothered by Bush going somewhere, as long as it was somewhere. NORAD headquarters in Nebraska? Fine; it’s a logical, sensible place; you can command military operations from there.

Stay up in the air an unnecessary hour or two while you find out what’s going on? That’s OK too.

What was unnerving, in those early hours, was his decision to fly from FL to, not the White House, not NORAD, but an AFB outside of Shreveport, Louisiana.

No offense to the good citizens of that hamlet, but it’s a long way from anywhere. It made me recall Jefferson Davis skedaddling to Danville, Va. in the final days of the Confederacy, and all I could think of was, "Has it come to this??

It was as if his landing place had been chosen not just to be away from the White House, but out of the top 500 or 1000 possible targets. Living, as I do, 45 minutes’ drive from the White House, I didn’t find it incredibly reassuring when he chose to broadcast from there in the middle of the day. It was the Shreveport stop that, to me, conveyed the impression of the President as a rabbit on the run.

It was a bad move, even if AF1 was a target. And if that was some sort of smokescreen, well, shame on them.

It’s hard for me to believe that such a threat would have been taken too seriously, even in those early, confused moments, assuming it had been believed real. The question’s niggled at me every time it’s been mentioned: how easy is it for a plane to deliberately hit AF1 in mid-air, under such circumstances? It’s got an expert pilot, it can call up fighter jets to accompany it, and it can scream at all legit air traffic (what’s remaining of it at that point) to get the hell out of its way. Who’s going to get through that?

18

It is stupid for them to have manufactured a threat story.

But count me among the ones who didn’t think it was stupid for him to go elsewhere for a while.

Washington was in chaos; people were evacuated everywhere; it’s not like he could called everyone into a room and started meeting together. He woulda had to teleconference anyway, why not do it from somewhere else? (I agree with RT Firefly’s point, though–go straight to Nebraska. That made sense)

I think they should have publicly answered the criticism with an honest answer that this seemed the best course of action. Not made up the story.

But have no illusions–I think little white lies get told all the damn time by the spin doctors. Don’t let this one change your assessment of the administration as if his is different from previous ones.

19

FYI, AF1 is the only passenger aircraft equipped with Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. Another airliner has zero chance of even getting close to AF1.

20

I don’t think that anyone can prove that the Whitehouse was a target. Sure, there was a hijacked plane on a course for the general DC area, but at no time was it on a direct course for the Whitehouse.

By the same token, I don’t think that anyone can prove that the Whitehouse wasn’t a target. There was a hijacked plane on a course for the general DC area, and there would be no need to set a direct course for the Whitehouse until it was much closer than it was when it crashed.

The only people that ever knew the final intended destination of that plane were the hijackers and the organization behind them. Anything else is speculation, until someone with direct knowlege either steps forward (yeah right) or is aprehended. We will probably never know one way or the other, we’ll just have to choose what bit of speculation or analysis to believe.

I believe that, since there was no way of knowing what the hell was going on at the time, the actions of the president and the secret service were correct: to err on the side of caution. If Bush had been in DC on the 11th, he probably would have been down in The Tube right along with Cheney and everyone else. Or not. But we’ll never know that, either.

And like Cranky said, I’ve got no illusions regarding the spin doctors. They’re all the same under any administration, and they always will be.