It’s funny how difficult it is for some to admit that the leader of their political party didn’t do something in a perfect 100 percent optimal fashion.
You know, admitting that Bush could have handled that situation a hair quicker does not mean you have to embrace the Democratic or liberal agenda. You don’t have to be for higher taxes, enter into a gay marriage, remove the Ten Commandments from public buildings and vote against an amendment to ban flag burning.
It only means he could have done a little better. Only 7 minutes better! Hell, if he was only was 5 minutes quicker, there really could be no criticism in this area.
It’s truly not worth the gyrations to defend it. He’s simply a man, and he could have handled the situation a few minutes faster. That’s all. It’s not worth the incredible physics-defying twists to try and put a good spin it.
Nobody ever claimed he was a perfect being, why must he be defended as if he were one?
What was the optimum number of minutes? The 9/11 Commission Report says that it was five to seven, depending on when you begin and end your measurements. You are arguing what I am arguing — he is simply a man, and made one reasonable selection out of any number of reasonable selections. No selection, however, would be unassailable by someone intent on assailing it:
0 minutes: Panicked. Displayed poor leadership. Scared the children.
1 minute: Couldn’t have been thinking. Not enough time to think.
2 minutes: Left too quickly. Seemed confused and afraid.
3 minutes: Acted prematurely. Should have waited for more facts.
4 minutes: Pushed the envelope. Seemed indecisive.
5 minutes: Waited an eternity. Should have moved quicker.
He did respond immediately. Despite what MTV has led you to believe, life — especially life in the federal government — does not sweep by in neat 4-second clips.
As long as he left calmly, I seriously doubt that any of the “too quick” criticisms would gain any traction. Of course they’d be made by some who must criticize, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have been right for him to get up quicker. Arguing that there’d be even lamer criticisms against him if he left earlier is not a convincing argument that he shouldn’t have got up a bit quicker.
Does anybody seriously believe that if he had left immediately the kids would have been scared? They’d simply be disappointed that the interesting visitor had left and the normal routine was coming back. I’ll give Bush the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn’t have ran into the hall pulling his hair out and screaming prayers at the top of his lungs.
This argument that he had to stay put to keep the kids calm (and I’m not accusing you of making this argument) is exactly the kind of insane gyration I was speaking of. It’s ridiculous. Adults leave the presence of kids abruptly all day without them going insane with fear. If it were the leader of a party I supported being defended over a few minutes inaction by such a ridiculous argument, I’d be far more embarrassed of such a ridiculous argument than over the few minutes delay being defended.
Think of it as a four-year freeze. Crack that seed-coat good ‘n’ proper.
I’m a little maudlin over Fay Wray, so please forgive me. King Kong, while gargantuan, is a grand, lumbering adversary, ruling forcefully by and through his passions. If The Blob of Big Government takes hold, we’d be wise to season ourselves and submit to the clammy embrace of its all-consuming pseudopod. Save everyone a whole lot of headache.
As long as it’s not this January, I’m down for the cold plates. Shit, I’ll even pitch in for the cups and ice!
The question is not whether I, with all of this hindsight, can think of specifics. Nor is the question whether Bush, at that time, with that information, could have or should have come up with specifics. The question is whether Bush, at that time, with that information, ought to have been able to immediately realize that there WERE no specifics.
But now we’re going around in circles. So much so, in fact, that I’ll only respond to a few key bits of the rest of your post. If that frees up more of your time to oppose tyranny, all the better
I agree. And if you say that, had he acted, it might have done good, and it might have done harm, and you also say that you’re glad he didn’t act, well, that strikes me as a pretty damning condemnation of him.
Neither of these quotes really support your claim that people were impressed by Bush’s actions on 9/11 itself. One says that they were confident in his ability to lead in an ongoing fashion. The other says that the president’s speech defined the shape of the US response and won bipartisan support. Neither really addesses the question of how impressed people were by Bush’s actions on 9/11 itself (although both are obviously related).
Well, my defensiveness comes because (a) you responded to serious arguments with attacks on my credibility, and (b) you made a claim about my hypothetical response to possible Bush actions which I initially read as “no matter what Bush did, you would be complaining”, but which I think was actually intended as “had Bush acted, there was a possiblity that there would be results about which you would be complaining”, which is certainly true, and not particularly insultnig.
'tisn’t.
I still don’t get what precisely you were getting at with you whole “oh, they think they’re smarter than the president. If they’re so smart, why aren’t they president” business. But at this point, the context is probably lost.
Agreed. In fact, there are no convincing arguments either way. I could just as easily argue that five minutes is too long or too short or just right. What that tells me, and what I’ve been saying, is that there was a whole range of reasonable amounts of time.
I think that’s exactly what he did realize, and why he simply waited for that portion of the lesson to end.
I don’t even follow that. I condemn him for his tyranny, but frankly, if every tyrant would just sit down, shut up, and do nothing, I would be delighted.
As you say, they are related, and that’s the point. It’s the simplest possible induction. All that people had to go by on the 12th was what they’d seen on the 11th. Immediately prior to the tragedy, Bush’s approval rating was an embarrassingly low 51%. (See Gallup cite.) That’s beyond the point at which presidential pundits begin to doubt that a president as candidate has even enough support for reelection. There is therefore no reason for people suddenly to “express confidence in President Bush’s ability to handle the situation” other than what they had seen the day before.
Non sequitur. Nothing in the poll indicated any religious faith nor any level of stress. It was about confidence in the President’s ability to handle the 9/11 situation.
Well gosh, the poll ignored our stress and non-rationality in the aftermath of 9/11? How convenient for you. Oh, wait, polls don’t define reality, they merely sample certain aspects of it. The poll didn’t ask about fuzzy kittens either, that’s no excuse for stepping on them as if they weren’t there.
Fair enough. And I believe he was just sitting there like a dolt. Barring simultaneous advances in time travel and mind reading, we may find it impossible to resolve this disagreement.
Which assumes two things:
(a) that people had any actual idea what it was that Bush did on the 12th. It’s pretty clear that many Americans didn’t quite consciously realize that Bush had been sitting in the classroom for so long reading after the second tower was hit. If everyone already did know that, then the reaction to Moore’s film wouldn’t be as strong.
(b) that there could be no other reason for a big bump in the polls. What about the well known “rally around the leader in a time of crisis” effect? I be that even among Americans who had absolutely no idea at all ANYTHING that Bush had done on 9/11 itself, his poll numbers would shoot way up.
