Something that will always bother me

[fat dad]

I know this is old but it is something that I have thought about almost every day for nearly five years now.

When Bush was told "the Nation is under attack" and he just kept sitting there, that means he must have known that the attack wasn't Russia or China lobbing bombs at us. Or nuclear submarines and bombers approaching our shores. He had to know that the "attack" was a terrorist attack, not a military attack or he would have gotten up and asked "who attacked us?" or "what kind of attack?" He at least would have been slightly curious, donchya think?

Am I missing something?

[Dammit Ann]

1. VERY DISTURBING!

i have never looked at it like that... even though, i do have my doubts about that day.

THE DAMMIT CHRONICLES

[driver8]

2. It seems to me that any "president" with half a brain would have

excused himself and left the classroom to find out what was up.

I also find it very, very strange that the secret service did not remove pissy pants immediately.

I know junior is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but c'mon!!

[MiniMe]

28. "Half a brain" - that would mean that he HAD half a brain nt

[Hailtothechimp]

3. He's Incurious George, remember?

I'm convinced Andy Card used a code of some sort on 9/11. Watching the tape, it's just not possible that he uttered more than 2 or 3 words. Certainly not even "America is Under Attack!" There just wasn't enough time for it.

[wildbilln864]

15. I think his words were...

"Shock and Awe is a go!"
911 was an inside job!
Muhammed Atta/Able Danger!

[eallen]

4. Don't you think he was told "a jetliner flew into the World Trade Center"?

Perhaps by the time the first plane struck, there was intelligence that it wasn't an accident. That wasn't obvious publicly until the second jet strike. But perhaps Bush received more intelligence than was available publicly. If so, it still wouldn't have seemed like a missile attack.

[MichiganVote]

5. He knew where we were being attacked and that his ass was safe

Easy to stay sitting in a chair in a classroom and do nothing while thousands of people are about to die a miserable death.

But I agree...Bush was counting up his enemies on his fingers and toes...he knew something no one else does...yet

[Erika]

6. On 9/11 at the time the attacks happened, my daughter called

She wanted to know what was going on. I told her there were some renegade terrorists who had made a few good hits. That's all there was and is.

[berni_mccoy]

7. Did you know the hotel he stayed at in FL had ANTI AIRCRAFT MISSLES?

Welcome to DU.

Here is the info on the anti-aircraft missle battery: http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2002/sarasotaheraldtribune091002.html

[StrictlyRockers]

8. Study his face closely as he sits in that classroom holding My Pet Goat

The face is very, very revealing. I am convinced he knew some, but not all of what was happening. You can see him TRYING to sort it out with his limited capacities. You can see his respiration quicken. You can see his heart is starting to pound in his chest as he attempts to sit still, but rocks back and forth very slightly to the rhythm of his pounding heartbeat.

The one thing he obviously does not know...is what to do.

[Cleita]

21. Yes, the face is very revealing. The darting, glittering eyes

especially are scary. However, I don't believe he didn't know what to do. He has minders that tell him what to do. He looked to me like he was thinking that this was it; this is what they had been told was going to come down and it was happening.

There was nothing to do but let it play out. His minders incidentally didn't plan how his response should be and fell down on the job, just like they had no plan after they took Iraq. It seems they have great plans to achieve a goal and no plans to cover their asses for the consequences other than to lie their way out of it.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

9. Probably Cause Of The PDB Titled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In The US

and the other pre-911 warnings they had. He knew exactly who it was. He just may not have known exactly when it was coming. I think that classroom was his "oh shit, maybe I shoulda paid more attention to that memo instead of being on vacation for 4 months" moment.

[Lex]

10. No, you are right. He asked *no* follow-up questions to Andy Card

after Card whispered into his ear that America was under attack.

I too have always found that utterly bizarre.

[Booster]

14. I have always found it utterly bizarre that Andy Card swiftly turned

and walked away, without waiting for a word, ANY WORD, from our fearless leader. Card's movements made me suspicious on that very day.

[Sydnie]

16. Because Card only whispered

"It is done". There was nothing for him to wait to hear, he needed no instructions. He was just telling blivet** that it had been done to their satisfaction. No more, no less.

[Booster]

19. Exactly my thoughts.

[Moochy]

20. Bush as the decider

But you have to admit every analysis of the bush administration paints bush as "the decider" and im sure he doesnt deviate much from cheney's dictates. That was the deal, Cheney and Addington run the country and Bush gets to play capt. bunnypants and have his pet war, come hell or highwater to upstage poppy.

That fundamental power balance beteen the VP office and Bush doesnt change regardless of who conspired to take the towers down.

[fat dad]

31. "It is done"

That is about the only thing that could have been said that makes sense, judging by his reaction. Or by Card not waiting for his reaction and merely walking away.

There is a good sized part of me that wishes I had never heard anything about this. Part of me would rather deny this, than to live with what this means.

[Sydnie]

36. I agree with you completely fat dad

but that is the reality and the only one that fits after all the water under this bridge.

I weep hot tears for what they have done to our country and for how hard it is going to be to bring ourselves back from it.

Welcome to DU. Glad to have you with us. :hi:

[Moochy]

17. Why ask the puppet for input

Dick Cheney was calling the shots already back in DC.

Just like the republicans who voted for Bush expected him to, and I believe was the tacit arrangement. Dick Cheney was the pragmatic republican voters' calmative, they knew he was the one making the decisions, so why upset the applecart and start taking orders from bunnypants, aka the face of the administration?

I think that this answer works equally well even if you are MIHOP an LIHOP or just plain stupid incompetence theorist. :)

[gordontron]

11. interesting never thought of that, thanks nt

[savemefromdumbya]

12. when asked he said:-

that he didn't want to worry the children he was reading My Pet Goat to!

[Garbo 2004]

13. He had already been told that a plane had hit the WTC before he

went into the classroom. In the classroom he was told that a second plane had hit the other tower. Which indicated an intentional coordinated attack.

He sat there IMO because he was scared shitless and didn't know what to do. It wasn't because he didn't want to scare the kids as he later claimed because less than a half hour later he made a press statement about the attacks using the kids as a photo op sort of backdrop (which was bizarre). Why the Secret Service didn't haul his ass out of there immediately is another question.

[fat dad]

29. He had already been told that a plane had hit the WTC before he

I didn't know that. Thank you. But I have always heard that Card's exact words were "the Nation is under attack". Are you certain that he'd already been told?

And, had he already been told about the first plane, isn't it altogether odd that the hours spent in a school, after that kind of news, would have been canceled and he'd have rushed to action? What President stays at a photo op after he's been made aware that his one of his country's most important buildings was just hit by terrorists?

Thinking that he'd already been told bothers me just as much, going over that scenario, maybe even more. What President would have not rushed to action after told of a plane hitting the WTC? Especially after all of the warnings he'd been given lately?

Regardless if he'd already been told, when he was notified about the second plane, wouldn't a normal reaction have been anger? Or alarm?

Any way you look at that day, and how Bush reacted to what was happening, what we saw from Bush is absolutely so far from a normal reaction to such staggering news, that I will always believe that he knew that that attack was coming before 911.

[Withywindle]

33. Well, he said so...

...so take it for what it's worth. He said later he'd seen the first plane hitting on TV (which was itself impossible, no one knew footage of that existed until a day or two later; the only footage of it that exists was shot by two French filmmakers who happened to be doing a documentary on NYC firefighters and happened to be out on a routine run with some ffs investigating a gas leak nearby or something), and that that was what he thought.

Who knows if it's true, but if it is, it just makes it worse IMO (see my post on it below).

[Garbo 2004]

39. See the 9/11 timeline, put together by Paul Thompson, a DUer. He uses

published reports as sources, notes discrepancies, raises questions, etc. http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&day_of_9/11=bush

Bush was told of the first plane before he entered the classroom. Yes, one would think after months of intel reports about a possible AQ attack on the US, one might have some concern about hearing that the WTC of all places had just been hit by a plane, but this is Bush (he later said the report of the first plane into the WTC raised no red flags in his mind) and there was a political photo op waiting for him.

While Bush was in the classroom, Card tells Bush of the second plane and that the nation was under attack. Having seen the video of Bush while he sat in that classroom I think his reaction was not one of foreknowledge but of fear and paralysis, the reaction of someone who was in a position way over his head. Why he was allowed to stay in the classroom and at the school is another matter. Did politics and the photo op trump Presidential security procedures? And if so, who made that decision? We don't know.

[passy]

42. If he had been whisked away there would have been no press conference.

The reason why he had to stay in that classroom is that, had he been taken away, he would not have had the opportunity to have a press conference.
I remember reading somewhere that the set up in that school was really big, because * was gonna give s speech on education.

Remember even good ole KKKarl was there.



from http://www.rochester.edu/pr/Review/V67N1/feature1.html

From that article we find out that * knew about the first plane before arriving at the school.

[shugah]

18. welcome to DU fat dad!

slightly curious would have been ... ... ... better than continuing to read my pet goat.

[Toucano]

22. He wanted to keep the children calm.

Can you believe Americans swallowed that explanation?

There's some shit eatin' people in the U.S., I must say.

[wildbilln864]

26. yep!

and smiling the whole time as they scarf it down!

[Proud Liberal Dem]

23. Not a strong leader AT ALL!

What I have always found most disturbing (and amazing) about that footage and the rest of his actions that fateful day (hopscotching around the country in Air Force One) is not only that Bush sat in that Florida classroom for minutes on end apparently in a daze(?) after apparently being told that we were under attack but also how the media and the GOP have managed to seemingly erase that footage from the historical record and built Bush into this "tough", "resolute", and quasi-legendary leader AFTER THE FACT. Nobody seems to remember that the so-called "leader of the free world" appeared that day to be paralyzed to the point of inaction for several minutes while a small band of terrorists crashed 3 hijacked planes into two buildings (one of them being the Pentagon no less). Also, whether or not Bush, Rice, etc. were briefed about Al-Queda and their terrorist activities by members of the outgoing Clinton Administration, it seems pretty clear now that Bush et. al did not pay enough attention to the threat they represented during the first eight months of his (mis-)administration and did not seem to regard his 8/16/01 PDB with the seriousness that it apparently deserved. We need to remind anybody who thinks that Bush is "tough" on terrorism of his actual conduct on and before 9/11/01 at every available opportunity in order to help deflate this "myth" that seems to have grown up around him and his record on fighting terrorism.

[tblue]

32. It was in Fahrenheit 911

Those who saw it, saw those 7 minutes. Of couse, the Dittohead types (who NEED to see it) didn't see the movie.

But remember how Michael Moore said, 'With no one to tell him what to do....,'?

* had no choice but to sit there wait for instructions. I can just imagine the little wheels a-clicking: 'Dang! I wish Dick or Condi or Karen Hughes were here!'

[ljm2002]

24. His reaction bothered me...

...from the minute I first saw the video of him sitting in the classroom.

I've been amazed and dumbfounded that (a) the Democrats did not use that footage (or at least refer to it); and (b) he was spun into a "great, resolute leader" faster than you can say Bob's your uncle.

There is no getting around it: Bush was not in charge and he did not take charge. Since he is the only one who can declare war or order airplanes shot down, he was absolutely derelict in his duty to get the hell up and do something. But he did not even try to find out more.

And the look on his face, let's face it: guilt all over it, shifty eyes, wheels turning (albeit slowly)...

Dereliction of duty is really the *best* you could say about his performance that day. And that is an impeachable offense in and of itself. Especially when you consider all of the warnings that were brushed aside for the preceding 8 months.

[Imagevision]

25. Bush flashed back to Rice's PDB, Bin Laden to attack in the US.

that's the sick part, this president badly failed the people.

[Blackthorn]

27. No. You are bang on.

Furthermore, it was no secret where the President was on that morning. The SS nor anyone else considered the President's safety to be at risk. At those early stages of the attack it would not be unreasonable to assume the President is a potential target. It doesn't make sense.

[raccoon]

43. Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner here!

"At those early stages of the attack it would not be unreasonable to assume the President is a potential target."

One of those "Now why didn't I think of that?" moments.

And how come it didn't occur to the other umpteen million Americans?

And why didn't it occur to the SS?

[Withywindle]

30. That always rang UTTERLY false to me...

By that point, he already knew one airliner had crashed into the WTC.

"That's one terrible pilot," he reportedly thought. And went on with 'My Pet Goat.'

Excuse me? Even if it had been an accident, it still would've been a horrific tragedy that killed hundreds of people. It's OK to joke about in that moment? It's not worth postponing a photo-op with schoolchildren for a couple hours while he tries to see what happened and how he can help?

Right there, to me, that's the mark of a sociopath, or a person who isn't surprised at all, or both.

[G Hawes]

35. I don't know. His response fits with my prior low opinion of him.

He's always been stupid and moronic. I don't see his response as anything more than yet another example of his inability to lead the country. He's always been incapable of leading the country. I think that if he was in on it, he'd have had a perfectly choreographed response all set up to make him look like a hero instead of sitting there looking like the idiot that he is.

[Garbo 2004]

41. A point not often noted. Yes, if he had known it would have been stage

managed to make him look like a heroic decisive man of action, not a lip chewing putz who looked like he was scared and didn't know what to do.

[kster]

34. I always wondered, Why did they drag

Bill Gates, into court? I know its off the cuff, but where they trying to slow down the internets investigative capabilities. I don't mean to change the subject, but I was always curious what their beef was with Bill Gates.

[Garbo 2004]

40. It was Clinton's DOJ that filed antitrust suit against MS. And it wasn't

about curtailing the internet, it was about MS engaging in anti-competitive monopolistic practices. http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/20691

[gmaki]

37. Yes you are missing something... IMHO

What you are missing is that EVERYTHING this administration tells us is a lie.

That means whatever Andy Card said to Bush was completely irrelevent to what they claimed he said when it came time to tell the story. They got a bunch of speach writers together and came up with the most dramatic line they could think of, a line that fit with the tlaking points of the day. that line was...

"The nation is under attack"

[OneBlueSky]

38. even more disturbing is the inaction of the Secret Service . . .

which generally hustle the president out of the way if someone sneezes . . . here he and they learn that "the nation is under attack," and they allow him to sit there . . . and sit there . . . and sit there . . .

either the Secret Service completely failed to carry out their mission that day (HIGHLY unlikely), or they KNEW that the president was absolutely not at risk . . .

I vote for the latter . . . and would love to find out HOW they knew -- and WHO told them . . .