Bush's spin of presenting strength and calmness on 9/11 doesn't work

[Az]

It assumes the audience he is sitting before knows what has happened. It assumes that they are scared. It assumes they believe sitting there and listening to a bunch of kids read is more important than the security of the nation. It simply doesn't work.

Strength and Calmness would have been standing up and explaining that something very important had just come up. He is supposed to be the president of the United States. I am sure they would understand that occaisionally important things happen in this little backwater republic.

The truth is clear. He is not in charge. He sat there because no one told him what to do. No attempts were made to contact him for orders during his wild ride through the skies of America. Everything funneled through Cheney. He is as much a football as the briefcase the Secret Service carries around with him.

[wtmusic]

1. Bush = The Football

good analogy!

[rooboy]

2. Yes... he's basically saying that the proper response to Pearl Harbor...

would have been to act natural and keep shopping. Emergencies demand urgent action - the guy's a dope.

[Doug Decker]

3. If * acknowledged what really happened,...

that America was under attack from al-Quida, he would be admitting that he had been warned. He couldn't do that and still play dumb.

[ewagner]

4. Well said.......

my suspicion is that this little snippet of information came from the "chat" that Bush* and Cheney had with the commission.

What a complete crock!

[venus]

5. Yep. Although I admit I couldn't watch him long enough in

kindergarten while we were being attacked. I can barely stand to look upon him for more than a few seconds. He should be so shamed.

[opihimoimoi]

6. The Pub Pigs are so confused, so flummoxed, so stymied, so desperate,

so bewildered, so, so, so LOST, they are willing to try anything.

Even the all the money in the world cannot buy them answers, the solutions, the path to victory.

They must resort to Lying, Cheating, an Theft. So there they are: Conniving, plotting, etc....24/7. The Begative Force has had its opportunity, Its time for the Positive Force to have a go at it.

[tcfrogs]

7. I'm gonna get flamed for this

But I don't see a huge problem with him staying in the classroom for 5-7 minutes after receiving the information about the attack. And I'm not saying he stayed to show strength & calm. He was simply waiting to hear what the contingency plans were. I'm assuming that there are plans in place for the POTUS for most possible scenarios. I just think he was waiting for instructions.

My two cents...

Flame away...

[opihimoimoi]

8. Just confirms how weeeeak he really is re the inner strength of

awareness.

[hlthe2b]

9. You do realize that he was sitting there after finding out that not just

one, but TWO planes had struck the WTC.... You do realize that? He went on in to talk to the kids, knowing that one plane had struck and while there learns ANOTHER has struck? What on earth was he waiting for? If that is your idea of leadership, heaven help us...

[tcfrogs]

10. I didn't say it was leadership

You were inferring that's what I meant. I was merely saying he was awaiting instructions on what to do. And, rather than run around like a chicken with his head cut off, he sat in the classroom & waited until his entourage told him what to do.

[hlthe2b]

16. You really buy into this CEO model of the Presidency, apparently...

So, you don't expect the "leader of the free world" to be able to make determnations of what information HE needed to understand what was going on, to have at least some initial questions re: the actions being taken by his senior security and cabinet staff, to identify the magnitude of the attack? I just can not get my mind around anyone thinking this is normal. To suggest that he should sit there and wait to be told what to do is to suggest (to me at least) that the role of President is only to be a figurehead...

I could possibly understand his sitting there after being told of the first attack, but knowing one plane had already struck and then being told a second had hit and STILL SITTING THERE? It boggles my mind...

Maybe you are content to have a puppet for President. But, given the potential power of that office, I absolutely am NOT.


On edit, this is not my idea of an effective CEO EITHER!

[tcfrogs]

19. All I'm saying is

that this was a VERY unique situation. It's only 20/20 hindsight to say what * SHOULD have done.

[hlthe2b]

21. No, I think most of us know what a "normal" reaction to a crisis is...

It does not take hindsight... Most of us have dealt with serious crises in our life, whether the acute illness or injury of a family member, a car wreck involving ourselves or one we come upon, a potentially violent confrontation, etc. While the magnitude of these events may be far different, the seriousness and immediacy are not so dissimilar. It simply is not "NORMAL" to just sit there.

That he did just sit there reflects one of two things. Either it is reflective of his having been "taken care of" his entire life given his life of privilege, never being held responsible for anything and thus lacking the knowledge, experience, and ability to lead. Alternately, it suggests the horrible possibility that he made a conscious determination to do nothing. The latter suggests involvement either in the attack (vis-a-vis OPERATION NORWOOD) or in a conscious decision to allow the attacks to proceed. Many here believe the latter. All I know is that a puppet in the WH would certainly allow for the possibility.

[SpiralHawk]

11. And his staff knew by then there were other hijacked planes

Bush choked. Plain and simple.

[louis-t]

12. That's the whole point!!!!

He is the president, he's supposed to GIVE instructions, ask questions, act presidential, dammit man, we are under attack, DO SOMETHING.

[Az]

13. But it wasn't 5-7 minutes

He stayed for 20 minutes. He stayed and sat there. No one approached him. No one asked him for guidance. No one advised him. He was in total isolation for that time. Time that clearly from the 9/11 commission required a leader. Which is something we clearly did not have.

[LuminousX]

14. Flame on

Wouldn't it have been better for him to get himself to a location where he could start receiving critical minute-by-minute reports? Wouldn't it be in his best interest, even if it were a pure accident, to start working with his press secretary to determine what might be done, to direct his staff to get the appropriate federal agencies in action, and to start soliciting opinions as to how this would affect other policies?

[chookie]

25. I would have done so reflexively

They spin this as though there were ONLY two choices in front of him -- to wet himself and to start screaming hysterically and frighten the children -- which Al Gore or Bill Clinton would have done (they'd have us think :-) ) OR sit there like a boob for 10 minutes, projecting '"strength and calm." BULLSHIT

What any normal Commander in Chief would have done is calmly and excuse himself to the kiddies, and go and do his fucking JOB, directing the flow of information and making IMPORTANT EXECUTIVE DECISIONS.

If he did not, he was either too mentally ot emotionally incapacitated to react in an appropriate fashion, OR he's used to having other people do the thinking and deciding for him, understanding his job is just to "look" the part.

[Insider]

15. flame? no

arguably the most important job any head of state has is to act in time of crisis, respond in time of attack. he did neither. sitting with ANYONE other than the national command authority AFTER hearing the phrase he allegedly heard from his CofS, is indefensible.

IMO he had to wait for the rest of the plan to unfold, period. he sat still because he was SUPPOSED to wait until the rest of the operation was executed.

we assume they intended good things for america that day. if you simply assume they intended bad things for us that day, everything else makes perfect sense. they have certainly demonstrated more bad intentions than good for america. no stretch of the imagination is required.

[catzies]

17. It wasn't 5-7 minutes. It was much longer than that.

The CinC doesn't wait for instructions. He's supposed to GIVE them. :shrug:

[LunaC]

24. If you get word about a horrible accident

in which your parents/partner/children were critically injured, the normal instinctual response would be to drop what you're doing to personally find out more details and rush to their side. No one in their right mind fades off into la-la-land waiting for instructions on how to respond in the middle of a crisis.

[eek]

18. If my kids had been in that room and not evacuated ASAP

I would be suing the figurative pants off of the WH.

Mr Strength and Calmness had a public schedule. He was endangering the lives of everyone at Booker School by staying put.


PS: Ain't it odd we have heard nary a peep from school staff, parents etc?

[Make7]

26. Good point.

What the hell was the secret service thinking? Are they not responsible for the presidents safety? They should have gotten him out of there even if he wanted to wait and see how the Pet Goat story ended. The man is a danger to himself and others.

Make7

[Insider]

27. great point

and another great question for the unanswered question list:

how did they know it was safe to stay at booker if america was under attack?

ps - they stayed long enough for his staff to prepare a speech. they stayed long enough for bush to give that speech.

holy stage-prep...

who said "let's pose the children behind the president" while america is under attack???
whose opportunistic idea was this? who said it? who staged it? talk about shameless, defenseless opportunism

[robbob]

28. Unless they already knew

...that the pResidunce was not in any danger, which is the exact opposite of the story they later spun to the sheeple to explain his frightened scury to get "out of harms way" later in the day.

:tinfoilhat:

[kentuck]

20. Considering they were trying to get him on the phone.....

and they couldn't , finally Dick Cheney gave the shootdown order....however, by then it was too late. What if they had gotten Dubya on the phone just a few minutes earlier?? Maybe hundreds or thousands of lives could have been saved. It was later in the evening, as I recall, before he addressed the nation. He had to come out of his hole in Nebraska, as if he was so important that his life was the only one worth saving...

[Malva Zebrina]

22. There will be a significant amount of people who will believe this

I hear them call in to Washington Journal, and hear them calling in to various talk radio shows, like Taliafero--they believe with all their heart that Saddam is connected to terrorism that attacked the WTC, that the war was justified because of that, as one said this morning on the RT show, because Saddam refused to let us in there to make sure he had no WMD, and all of the other talking points that we here on DU have been discussing for the past three years and refuting. They also believe that it is Clinton's fault because he did not invade another country that we suspected was a threat to us.

They believe it is right to murder people by the thousands in order to--well actually, they do not, I believe, know why they believe that at all.

This is hysteria and fear -- absolute fear and the attempt to kill everyone and anyone to "show" them our strength. It is pure, ignorant fear. People who support Bush, are animals, imo. and the lowest -- like slugs or worms, or mosquitoes and ticks.

[TexasSissy]

23. Good visual. Football. I'll steal that, if you don't mind.

I'll use that when posting on a conservative-liberal board. It's pretty accurate description.