NYT: Bush will "ride out the storm" at NorCom HQ in Colorado Springs

[highplainsdem]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/23/national/nationalspecial/23bush.html?hp&ex=1127534400&en=d454e5020d49964a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

After today's Texas photo-op, according to the Times:


He then intends to fly to Colorado Springs, the White House said, to ride out the storm at the headquarters of the Northern Command.

Mr. Bush can monitor the hurricane from the Northern Command's operations center, where oversight of the military response to crises in the United States is managed. It is at an airfield just across town from Cheyenne Mountain, where the military once monitored the Soviet Union for nuclear missile launching.

Asked whether Mr. Bush's pre-hurricane advance work in Texas was anything more than a photo-op, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said the president "wants to go and be able to see some of the preparations that are under way" and thank police, fire, medical and other emergency personnel who are assembling to work on the storm.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. will he import two cute black girls for the photo-op hug?

Colorado Springs. I wonder if they stocked it with Bourbon?

[Nikki Stone 1]

2. He's just hiding from the protesters tomorrow.

The hurricane gives him an excuse.

[MadHound]

16. You are soooo right!

Hurricane gives him an excuse to get out of town and try to look like he is actually doing something, when the reality of the matter is that once again he's running like a rabbit away from anything threatening, be it a hurricane, a terrorist attack, or the mother of a dead soldier.

Bush is just another fucking neo-con coward. It continues to amaze me how the right likes to paint folks on the left as weak and wimps, yet when cruch time comes, be it war, natural disaster, or some other emergency, the vast majority of neo-cons run away like the punk-ass cowards that they are. One need to go no further to see this phenomenon than the chickenhawks, both inside and outside of the government who are still pushing this war. And their leader continues to exemplify this with every new crisis big or small, his motto is always RUN AWAY!

[nodehopper]

17. TOTALLY!!! I didn't even think of that.

[Inland]

3. Can't wait to see the military costume he'll wear while

he tries to get some of that commander in chief aura.

Something with epaulents? A hat?

Will they show him The Big Board?

[ewagner]

4. Ride out the storm?

In Colorado Springs...what's that a couple of hundred miles from the storm's impact?

In what? A bunker dug into the side of a mountain?

Overseeing the hurricane rescue/recovery/relief operations? Oh, you mean like he did with New Orleans during Katrina? (Oh, excuse me, I forgot he was on vacation then)

[HereSince1628]

13. Sort of like his riding out of the Vietnam war

It should be a very smooth ride.

[cami715]

28. Could be he is there for a quick detox.

Did you see his press conference Thursday?

[gulliver]

38. Whether it's propaganda or just an journalistic ignorance ...

... it really is disgusting to see the term "ride the storm out" applied to what Bush is doing. Nothing means anything any more.

[ET Awful]

5. Which storm? Rita or the storm of dissent that's brewing in DC this

weekend?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

15. no one told him about DC. The DVD is still being burned

Hey, this guy can only deal with one issue at a time. Give him a break, already. Just yesterday, he spent most of the day deciding on which bike to take to Colorado. That was his one decision for the day.

[warrens]

6. Make the fuckwad drive there, then

This just shows how incompetently he handled Katrina. If he had paid a bit of attention instead of shmoozing with financial donors and pretending to play a guitar, thousands of casualties could have been avoided.

Scumbucket.

[lse7581011]

7. Hope They've Got The Bar Well Stocked! n/t

[Missy M]

8. Somehow bush sitting at the Northern Command's operations...

center does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling. This guy goes from one extreme to the other. All of this just to bolster his image. What a farce.

[highplainsdem]

36. I agree it's a farce, and it won't impress any but the kool-aid drinkers.

Just a few minutes ago on CNN I saw video of Bush at FEMA this morning, and David Gregory asked him whether he wouldn't be getting in the way of emergency management with this trip.

The emperor has no clothes and no clue, and reporters are finally pointing that out.

[Chi-Town Exile]

9. Won't That Require Him to Stay Awake?

This could be a real issue for him if he has to stay up all night. You know how cranky the Disaster Monkey gets.

Guess Rove wants to get plenty of pictures of Der Fuhrer looking like he's engaged and interested in what's happening. :puke: It will take a so-called genius like Rove to make a drunken frat boy look like he is a leader in a time of crisis. KKKarl sure has his work cut out for him.

[PATRICK]

10. Why Colorado?

Is that some sort of natural disaster command center?

Or is really an excuse to bug out od DC without getting highlighted in another hurricane debacle in his own GOP state?

Or something else which does not bear thinking about since that specter is always with us under Bush.

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. All of the above

n/t

[HereSince1628]

11. It's a great cover for participating in NorCom's Granite Shadow operation

Well, maybe not a great cover, but it's the sort of deception that this administration loves.

[ewagner]

14. What is Granite Shadow?

that's the second reference I've seen but didn't come up with anything in a search.

Little help please?

[leveymg]

22. There's a long thread at Greatest on Granite Shadow

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4849457&mesg_id=4849457

It's a military "simulation" exercise run by Northern Command (NORCOM)(territorial US) that's running this weekend in DC. The premise is that there's a terrorist attack and the US armed forces go into action in American cities. Not just a computer game, as there will be lots of very real special forces and military intel types in plain clothes roaming around Washington.

Just a coincidence that the big DC anti-war rally is also on Saturday. Another coincidence that Bush will be at NORCOM HQ "monitoring" things. Yet another coincidence that Bush ordered the post 9/11 State of National Emergency extended a couple days ago. BushCo is already ruling by decree, what's next?

So, call me an alarmist.

[ewagner]

23. Yikes!

What bothers me:

Granite Shadow drill will be run out of NORTHCOM this weekend.

and

Bush will be "riding out the storm" AT NORTHCOM this weekend.

I don't like this crap one little bit......it's sh*t like this that just breeds paranoia....

[PATRICK]

25. When Jeb did that in Florida

when NORAD drilled for 9/11 ON 9/11. When Shrub was out of town INSIDE his brother's prepared state of emergency. It makes me a little nervous.

[highplainsdem]

32. Thanks for the link!

[Psyop Samurai]

33. Any word on Warren Buffet's whereabouts yet?

...just wondering. :scared:

[highplainsdem]

27. True.

[LibertyLover]

18. So, once again

our glorious leader is turning tail and hiding in the face of a national disaster A quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail seems to be called for here:

"Run away!"

[theHandpuppet]

19. That's akin to me "riding out the storm" in West Virginia

Sans the bomb-proof underground command center.

Truly, where do some of these reporters come up with such Bush-boosting rhetoric? Did Rove write this himself?

Riding out the hurricane in Colorado. Riiiiiiight.

[leveymg]

24. Site R is in West Virginia. Is Cheney there with you? n/t

[theHandpuppet]

26. Yeah, I think I saw him at our local livestock auction...

...shopping for a heart.

[wakeme2008]

20. Do you think he will be safe down this rabbit hole

From

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/nuclear_bunkers/norad.html

[joanne]

21. Quite a switch for the Chimp

who attended fund raisers and ate birthday cake while New Orleans was drowning. Then resumed his vacation.

[Kber]

29. Yeah well, I'll be riding out the storm in New Jersey

Wish me luck!

Kidding of course.

[pitohui]

30. what a chicken shit

to call him a chicken hawk is to cast aspersions on a fine bird

i'm done w. good manners where the chimperor is concerned

[Dulcinea]

31. He doesn't have the stones.

If he had any, he'd be in Crawford, somewhat near those who need help.

[highplainsdem]

34. CNN just mentioned Bush will be avoiding the DC protest, too, this way.

Daryn Kagan brought that up while talking to WH correspondent Suzanne Malveaux.

[gauguin57]

35. He's on a Rocky Mountain High, with all the Coors he can drink.

You just keep monitoring that situation, there, mister president, ya big puss.

[Generic Other]

37. That's where Bush partied so hard he had to quit drinking in 1986

Uh-oh...

see post #13
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4854350

[junkiebrewster]

39. I thought this was another Gannon thread.... N/T