Bush Tried to Project Strength on 9/11

[kskiska]

WASHINGTON - Told America was under attack, President Bush decided he needed to project strength and calm and not bolt from a Florida classroom where he was reading to children as crisis and confusion began to spread on Sept. 11, 2001, an independent commission said Thursday.

Initially Bush was advised by an aide that a small plane had hit the World Trade Center. As the real dimensions of the attack became clear with terrorist strikes in New York and Washington, the commission said Bush told Vice President Dick Cheney: "Sounds like we have a minor war going on here. I heard about the Pentagon. We're at war ... somebody's going to pay."

(snip)

Bush lingered in the classroom for five to seven minutes as the children read. The Secret Service was anxious to move him to a safer location "but did not think it imperative for him to run out the door."

"The president told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis," the report said. "The national press corps was standing behind the children in the classroom; he saw their phones and pagers start to ring. The president felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening."

more…
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/8949511.htm

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Projecting competence was completely out of the question though.

[MuseRider]

2. Oh Puleeezzzzzzze!

:puke:

Just what we need during crisis is Bush* being a dumbass once again.

[Bluebear]

3. But there were no TV cameras, only school A/V equipment

How would that project "calm"?

[Demonaut]

28. just what I was thinking, so many lies, so many liars

he's a punk

[Lisa]

4. what -- he can't say "class dismissed" and still look like he's in charge?

Not that good at multitasking, is he!

I'll bet most people reading this could calmly step out of a roomful of kids (e.g. by saying "just a minute -- I need to pee") without sending the place into a panic.

[The empressof all]

5. Again-This excuse is scary (eom)

[gulliver]

6. Right. Then he bunnyhopped across the country ...

... making us all worry we might be under nuclear attack. Yeah, he sure projected strength.

Rove thought Bush was projecting strength so well, he (Rove) decided to tell journalists there was a credible threat to Air Force 1 -- which turned out to be a black lie.

This is just the Bushies trying to innoculate viewers from what they are about to see when F911 hits the theaters. It's pre-spin.

[Politicub]

12. Pre Fahrenheit 9/11 spin

You're right. That's exactly what this is. A preemptive strike against the film. You know it must be damaging if the Bush machine is putting as much PR weight behind it as I've read they are doing.

[UpInArms]

7. Huh?

:wtf:

Why did he not stand up and say:

"Children, I appreciate the invitation to join you today and I fully intended to spend this time doing so.

As PRESIDENT of the USofA, some things cannot be controlled and I must now leave you."

Exit room and take care of the United States of America!

:puke:

Appear calm?

Who the F*** cares?

How about "appear alive and knowledgeable"?

[Cocoa]

8. picture of Bush projecting strength

[oasis]

18. This "deer caught in headlights moment" needs to be replayed and replayed.

[yardwork]

37. He looks drugged. Maybe he was. Who knows?

What's a "minor war," anyway?

If * really did say that, he's an even bigger jerk than I thought (wait, that isn't possible).

[truthisfreedom]

53. maybe he just crapped his pants and didn't want to stand up, only to have

it fall down his pants leg.

[leesa]

38. He knows he's just committed himself to treason?

Only thing I can think.

[LiberalFighter]

45. People like him never think they ever commit treason.

Only lower social classes commit treason. /scarcasm off

[sniffa]

9. pLaying the "bush is a strong Leader" card

everything that comes out of the bush camp is so disengenuous it's offensive; insuLting to any one capabLe of thinking (but sadLy not breeding - remember to spay or neuter your repubLicans).

[Politicub]

10. Revisionist history

Dear leader must protect his image. He wasn't scared like a little boy -- he was "projecting strength."

[Bullshot]

11. You need to understand that Bush was projecting strength

by proving to himself he can read a grade-school level book. Maybe next year he can learn to write in cursive! And then add and subtract! Who knows? Maybe Karl Rove will let him collect milk money at the next school he visits?

Our little boy is growing up so fast!

[enki23]

13. they're worried about the farenheit 9-11 footage

.

[WoodrowFan]

14. I'd feel more secure

with him sitting there, staring blankly like he'd been hit on the back of the head with a 2x4. sheesh.

[Windy]

15. What about the safety of the kids!!!!

Planes were targeting Washington, his presence in the school was known. Gee, did they not think about that?

[Carni]

20. No shit!

That was the first thing I thought of when I initially heard this crap...according to his cabinet's BS he was a target and if nothing else, the children should have been evacuated from the school for THEIR safety (even if that dumb ass chose to stay there and hide)

The other lie I noticed today was that Rove initially told him that a small twin engine plane had hit the North tower...I found a speech given by his situation room manager (some woman I have forgotten her name) and SHE claimed in some speech to a church group that SHE broke the news to him before his entourage ever left for the school.

I posted it here but of course like a dummy I have lost my links to the articles:(

[Mokito]

55. How can that be, if * claims to have SEEN the FIRST plane crash

even before stepping into the classroom?

[LiberalFighter]

46. They were using a cloaking device

[DemoTex]

Vapid, scared little man (Bu$h).

Fighter pilot my ass. I know fighter pilots by the dozen, and little-man Bu$h is not a fighter pilot. He might have flown jet fighters (F-102), but he is not a fighter-pilot.

[teryang]

16. A Columbo rerun today

At the end, Louis Jordan asks the relentless detective, when did you know I was the murderer?

C. Almost immediately.

L.J. How?

C. It was easy. When you found out that your friend with whom you had dinner had died of poisoning shortly afterwards, you came to the police station as summoned, instead of proceeding immediately to the hospital for a checkup. Most remarkable case of disinterest in one's own welfare I've ever observed. I knew you had to be the killer. No one else would have come to the police station as requested, unless they already knew for sure they weren't poisoned themselves. How could they know that?

[CatWoman]

19. Murder Under Glass

One of my favorites!!!!!!

[DemoTex]

22. Love Columbo. Is that on Direct-TV (satellite)?

What are Peter Faulk's politics? Anyone?

[teryang]

30. I think it was on Bravo (cable)

It was a classic.

[Hoping4Change]

17. He put every child at Booker in danger because an attack

could have been launched at the school. "Bush's appearance at Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, on September 11, 2001 had been in the planning stages since August , but was only publicly announced on the morning of September 7.

Later that same day, (Sept 7) hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi traveled to Sarasota and enjoyed drinks and dinner at a Holiday Inn only two miles down the sandy beach from where Bush was scheduled to stay during his Sarasota visit.


On the night of September 10th, Bush stayed at the Colony Beach Resort—“—“an upscale island enclave .. off Sarasota, Florida.” Zainlabdeen Omer, a Sudanese native living in Sarasota, told the local police that night that someone he knew who had made violent threats against Bush was in town and Omer was worried about Bush's safety. The man was identified only as “Ghandi.” A police report states the Secret Service was informed immediately.


To read entire account
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayaninterestingday

[Just Me]

21. What the f*ckever. Like he couldn't "calmly" excuse himself, ASAP.

Like he could better understand what was happening by staying put.

Bah!!! Bullshit!!!

[kskiska]

23. It took 3 years for Karen Hughes to come up with this one.

No explanation has been offered up till now – now that the movie is coming out.

[Cocoa]

24. two networks showed small clips of that Bush footage today

that footage has been on the Internet for TWO YEARS, and today is the first day I've seen it on any channel, and I saw it on TWO.

Any coincidence that they happened to decide to show it right before the Moore movie comes out?

[murielm99]

41. Right. This one has Hughes written all over it.

That is the first thing I thought of when I read this.

There are important things that they should be doing RIGHT NOW, but I bet anything they are all sitting around creating pre-movie spin.

[pinto]

25. The "scared Bush" refrain is off. He didn't know what to do. Not a clue.

Don't think that's fear in the picture, it's clueless. He is saying "Oh effin' A, whadda I do."

[dansolo]

32. I don't think this was the case

I think what Andrew Card whispered in his ear was, "The vice-president is taking care of things." Bush just sat there because he knew that he wasn't in charge.

[TLDHOME99]

57. cheney

was carried off by the elbows to a safe underground location.

Bush just sat there. I guess the Secret Service knew it was more important to get the man in charge out of harm's way than to get Bush out of the way.

[leesa]

39. Well, that, and he knew it was coming.

[Cha]

26. Is this a little Florida rite wing rag?

Because they sure are reporting it like is...
How much more of this pre-emptive "Fahrenheit 9/11" are they going to spread around the US in rags that will accept the white house version as veracity?

[sam sarrha]

27. B * said he saw the first plane go into the tower #1 while waiting to

waiting to enter the class room, and said, "What a dumb pilot..." . he lied.. didn't happen, he was told on the video about the first plane, Chaney told the NORAD planes to shoot down the hijackers 7 minutes after the last plane attack. and

I am getting sick of the liberal media protecting this idiot

[Carni]

35. He said it twice in two seperate scripted speeches

I can see him doing it once if he botched what he was supposed to say (earpiece malfunction and all that) but the fact that he said it twice verbatim in two seperate speeches, makes it obvious that this was the scripted line...

COUPLE THAT with brother Jeb's martial law order for the state of Florida on September 7th and you have...

CONSPIRACY THEORY MY ASS

This was a MIHOP IMO

[sam sarrha]

29. all about immage.. projected false immage of a HOLLOW man

:tinfoilhat:

[moondust]

31. "...by scampering away with tail between legs."

Not an easy trick for a little field mouse to pull off.

[RamboLiberal]

33. WPost reports several 9-11 families snorted at this explanation

Several audibly snorted at a characterization of President Bush's desire to project "strength and calm" in a classroom of second-graders when told America was under attack.

The whole damn country needs to snort at this and send bunnypants hopping back to Crawford. As someone who grew up with the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc., I'm damn glad it wasn't Condi's mushroom cloud that day.

[leesa]

34. Yikes! Who wrote that script for Bush??? Really stinky!

[drscm]

36. Yeah? And this headline caused me to project my dinner. eom

eom

[Solly Mack]

40. smirk

Yeah sure, that's how I remember it too...hehehehehehehehehehe

Calm. Yeah. Bush. Yeah. hehehehehehehehehehehehehe

So, uh, what's the punch line?

[smirkymonkey]

42. He bravely ran away, away...

brave, brave Sir....never mind. F**ing coward. :puke:

[symbolman]

43. Have a look at my sig line

and see how brave he was..

stupid coward.. old Yellow Stain was Stuck to the seat..

[benfranklin1776]

48. Damn fine compilation.

My hat is off to you. It needs as wide an exposure as possible.

[BattyDem]

44. Strength???

Yeah, right. :eyes:

I've said it before and I'll say it again ...
I'm no Rudy Guiliani fan, but I am soooo grateful we had him on 9/11 because we weren't getting any leadership from Washington! :mad: I was sitting in my living room scared to death and then Guiliani held the press conference. He basically said it was really bad, but we'd get through it. It know it sounds silly, but I did feel a lot better after that because I felt like there was someone who was taking charge of the situation, someone who was going to bring a little bit of order to all the chaos. Believe it or not ... having the VP bury himself in a bunker while the pResident "disappeared" for several hours didn't make me feel better! :eyes:

[kurtyboy]

47. If he wanted to show strength

Couldn't he have used the time to say to the children, "You know, the United States has had some terrible things happen to it today, and I'm going to have to leave soon and begin to take care of them. I appreciate my time here with you, but I've got a job to do, and you can be sure that I'll make sure everything will be allright. Since I don't have to leave for a couple of minutes, why don't we talk about why people do bad things to other people? Who wants to begin?"

Would this have shown strength to the kids? Certainly, and in addition would have begun an important dialog that our nation could be proud of. Of course, it's not the case that * had either the talent for this kind of dialog or "strength" of character to pull this off...

The excuse they're trotting out is lame---where was it when I went ballistic after viewing the tape for the first time? Fargin bastiges!

EDIT: ON the other hand--Andy Card might have gone out and whispered, "Mr. President, we're at war-look calm and strong in front of these children." and the chimp simply executed the orders as best he could. Watch the tape and see if you think he cleared the bar.....

[Algomas]

49. I love this quote..

"The president felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening."

Maybe by the time he reaches the Hague he will understand WTF happened.
Or maybe not...

[Enraged_Ape]

50. Jesus Hernandez Christ!! Even the President of Amway would have...

had the presence of mind to say, "Sorry, boys and girls, but Mr. President has to go and do President stuff! Take care and be good little Americans!", before hustling out the door to do the shit that real Presidents do when the country's under attack!!

This is such crap!! They are scared shitless by Fahrenheit 9/11, and I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE IT!!!

[truthisfreedom]

51. "...somebody's going to pay." right, dick. can we say "the Iraqi People?"

c'mon, now, dick. nice and loud so the whole class can hear.

[Dogmudgeon]

52. Let's give Bush the benefit of the doubt

Then what happened after he got up to "take care of bidness"?

Bush blew that whole thing. I'm sure he had plenty of help, but he was The Boss and The Adult and said so repeatedly.

With Bush, it's just one lie after another, and an administration which bases policy on ass-covering and excuse-making. I'm certain that Bush had moments of lucidity, real leadership and great virtue. The problem is, how are we supposed to believe it?

Most of the cartoonists are now portraying him as an idiot child, and nobody believes that he's as tall as he is (6'1", IIRC). That's a telling factoid. And we need telling factoids because we can no longer trust Bush and company to tell us the truth.

--bkl

[LibDemAlways]

54. Last year a repuke acquaintance told me he was

glad that the chimp as "in charge" on 9/11 and couldn't imagine Gore in that situation. I tried to control myself as I explained that the chimp sat in that classroom looking clueless and then kept on reading the goat story to the kids. The repuke spin? He obviously did not want to upset the children.

Hard core repukes will never criticize anything the moron does. I hope Moore's movie is so successful that it wakes up millions of the apolitical types and fence-sitters to what has been going on. Every one of us should take a non-politically active friend to see this movie - and pay their way if we have to.

[saigon68]

56. AN AWOL DRAFT DODGING COWARD

Staying Alive-- Staying Alive-- Ah Ha Ha Staying Alive---

apologies too the Bee Gees

LOL