127 replies to this topic

[Nittany Lioness]

Also - didn't Ari Fleisher hold up a pad to him from the back of the classroom that read:  "Don't say anything yet" -
indicating of course that info was in the pipeline and would influence what he should do/say in the next minutes.

[Spectacles]

I hadn't heard that Fleischer had held up the "Don't say anything yet" sign from the back of the room.

I guess I'm mainly uncomfortable with Bush's reaction in the seven minutes after Card told him that we were under attack because it's so contrary to anything I can imagine myself doing. So when I hear that Bush is taking cues from his press secretary on how to respond, when all he knows for certain while he sits there listening to My Pet Goat is that a second plane has hit the towers and we're "under attack," I'm still bewildered.

From the pictures, it's clear that a schoolroom was set up as an info center. Bush is on a phone. There are pictures of the tower burning on the television. All of this, apparently, takes place after the seven minutes of inaction that I'm afraid I'll never understand no matter how it's excused. And it's not that I don't understand it because he's Bush. Had Clinton or any other President responded this way, I would be equally baffled.

[HubcapDave]

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I don't think he's evil. I don't even know that he's not a likeable guy. But he does seem to me to be possibly the worst president this country has had in a long time.

I guess you weren't around to endure Jimmy Carter.


As to the rest of this thread: At what point do we let all of this crap go? A story about our president having a bike accident has turned into a rehash of the whole TANG and Swift Boat business.

ENOUGH PEOPLE!

[Lin731]

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I guess you weren't around to endure Jimmy Carter.

I was and IMO he stunk on ice as a President but he DID manage something no other President has managed...The Peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. I also think he's a better humanbeing than any President in my lifetime. I rate Carter second though to Bush on the lousy President scale.

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As to the rest of this thread: At what point do we let all of this crap go? A story about our president having a bike accident has turned into a rehash of the whole TANG and Swift Boat business.

ENOUGH PEOPLE!

It's hard to let go of such questions/issues from the past when the man's current actions continue to cast serious doubt on his character and honesty. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt after 911 but he quickly dispelled any good will I had when he muzzled the EPA from telling the truth about the hazardous air all the 911 rescue workers/fire/police and average citizens were breathing in, then reneging on healthcare funds that were promised to all those workers sickened by the air around the 911 site. Add onto that, all the BS he used to support his case to invade Iraq, rewarding the people involved in all that alleged "bad intel", no-bid contracts to Haliburton, trashing the EPA standards, running up the worst deficits in history while cutting taxes for the wealthy, Medicare reform which is really nothing more than a big ole sloppy kiss to the healthcare/pharma industry, poor medical care for Vets, CAFTA, stem cell research opposition etc... I can't forget all that and it frustrates me that so many Bush supporters appear to blind themselves to all this. I refuse to "forget" all those things and given that many conservatives to this DAY loathe/hate/fixate on Clinton, I'd say lack of "forgiving/forgetting" is not confined to one political ideology.

As for Bush's fall off the bike...Either the man should put training wheels on it or find another way to exercise that does not chance breaking his neck, busting his skull or injurying bystanders.

[Spectacles]

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Hubcap Dave: I guess you weren't around to endure Jimmy Carter.

Yep, I was. I've been enduring presidents since Eisenhower--though I was so young then he just looked like Casper the Friendly Ghost to me. Actually, I think Carter has gotten a bum rap and wasn't nearly as bad a president as he's generally made out to be. I don't think he was great, just not the gee-haw awful peanut farmer a lot of folks make him out to be. He's a very smart man who wasn't a very effective executive. But, for those who thought he was the worst president ever, there at least was considerable consolation in having to endure him for only one term.

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As to the rest of this thread: At what point do we let all of this crap go? A story about our president having a bike accident has turned into a rehash of the whole TANG and Swift Boat business.

ENOUGH PEOPLE!

Well, yes it has, but some of the discussion has been quite civil. It's certainly toned down in the past few hours. Isn't that worth acknowledging rather than telling us all just to shut up?

[Zwolf]

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I guess you weren't around to endure Jimmy Carter.

****** Oh, I remember Carter.  And somewhere in Gerald Ford's archives is a letter from a grade-school Zwolf to prove that fact, because I didn't like Carter as a kid, and I was proven right - he was an awful president.  Very nice man - he's a good ex-president - but his term in office was a total disaster. I didn't think any president would even take that "worst president ever" crown from him... but, lo and behold, we get W, who makes Carter actually look competent.  

I'm glad that when they got stuck with a bum president on their hands, however, the Democrats did the right thing and helped vote him out...

Cheers,

Zwolf

[CJ AEGIS]

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Waterpanther:  That's assuming regular rules and procedures would be followed. Money and politcal influence have a way of getting around the regs. Paperwork can find its way into shredders. Witnesses keep silent because it's in their own best interest to do so.

That still doesn’t explain away the very large, expensive, and broken lawn dart of an F-102.  Contrary to the best case conspiracy theories you just cannot cover up the crash of a multimillion dollar aircraft.  You can’t exactly dump that broken aircraft into the junkyard and expect no one to notice it.  You have to expend a tremendous amount of time, resources, money, and paperwork to get the spare parts to replace it.  On top of that most of your paperwork on the subject would be either with the manufactures of the parts and the various other Federal Agencies that would investigate the crash.  Ultimately you end up with a scenario that has enough evidence against it that not even Michael Moore would bother making a movie on it.  

On top of that anyone who crashed an F-102 was lucky to walk away from it.  Modern fighter planes rarely make crashes that are belly in touch up the paint landing.  More often then not the plane needs a total overhaul or it is scrapped.  Either way you couldn’t destroy the paper and witness trail enough to hide it.  

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WP:
There's a difference between protecting and baby-sitting. You don't see SS telling Bill Clinton he can't work a crowd--and heaven knows that man has enemies who'd be willing to pot him. It probably gives the poor guys nightmares, but they take his orders, not the other way around.

There is a difference between pressing the flesh and racing out into an unsecured situation during a major terrosist attack without any knowledge of what is going on or the potential threat to the POTUS.  The USSS might grudgingly accept the first on the second they are likely to tie you into your chair.  The point is Bush would have been stupid not to listen to the USSS in the middle of a terrorist attack.  

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WP: Oh, I agree that Bush could have done very little if anything that would have made a difference. But that's the product of 20/20 hindsight.

Even if there were more planes in the air Bush wouldn’t have been able to do anything.  At the time everything was in the hands of NORAD.  

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Anakam: Ahh... you sound exactly like The West Wing, when they talk about the Secret Service. It's all about the safety of the protectee being paramount, even more so than what he wants to do.

The West Wing the few times I have seen it seems to do a pretty good job of portraying the role of the USSS.  I think they are a bit more intrusive than the show makes them appear.  I can recall several things that have occurred on the show that the USSS never would have allowed.  

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Spectacles:  As for there being danger in flying the F-102, there are mixed reports on it. The source I found said it had a pretty good safety record.

Anyone who says the F-102 had a good safety record is barking up the wrong tree.  According to the aerospaceweb link 259 of them were lost in crashes out of 875 production models.  Any plane that has around 30% of them crash is not carrying on a pretty good safety record.  

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Spectacles: Whatever the reason, he chose not to continue.

Another option is that he knew that the F-102s would be replaced in a couple of years and the returning active duty pilots from Vietnam would displace the ANG pilots.  The ANG started dropping pilots left and right about a year or two after Bush pulled out of the ANG.  

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Spectacles: That he didn't seem to think it appropriate to excuse himself if for no other reason than to find out more information?

Not really considering in seven minutes he would have had a lot more information gathered by his staff.  At that point everyone from NORAD on down was pretty much in the dark in terms of having much information.  I do find it amazing that most people against Bush criticize him for using “bad information too quickly” to go into Iraq and then blast him for waiting seven minutes for better information on 911.  

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Spectacles: As for NORAD, why on earth didn't they scramble interceptors immediately? (I'm not blaming Bush, by the way. Just curious. Does anyone know?) The Pentagon was hit over an hour after the Twin Towers were. It seems to me that with an awareness that "America is under attack," it would only make sense to get interceptors over DC and fast.

That would be a case of 1990s defense budgets running amok.  I think we only had 14 aircraft spread out on alert condition to defend the entire mainland of the United States.  That means there might have been maybe 5 or 6 aircraft within range of NYC and Washington if they pushed it to the limit.  At least a few ADFs were launched to intercept the second aircraft heading toward the WTC.  That would have just about burned them out of fuel if they were pushing the limits to get there quickly.  Overall I think it was pretty much a case of not having enough fighters on alert and the ones we had burning themselves out of fuel responding to the attack over NYC.  A fighter running all out to make an intercept burns fuel at an amazing rate especially if they use the burners.  

After that NORAD was down to fighters that were in the air on training missions with no weapons onboard or readying more fighters in terms of arming, fueling, and calling in more pilots.  Getting a fighter plane ready to takeoff that isn’t already on alert status is a lengthy process.  There is a reason why they keep fighters on various alert statues.  The fighters on training missions would have been rather useless unless they tried to force down the airliners by turbulence from high speed passes or by ramming them.  I know there is talk that the ramming option was considered. Either way it was a case of working with far too little.  I checked this out shortly after the more detailed timelines came out and pretty much concluded that was the case.  I’ll see if I can dig up the information again and post something more detailed.

[Spectacles]

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CJ: I do find it amazing that most people against Bush criticize him for using “bad information too quickly” to go into Iraq and then blast him for waiting seven minutes for better information on 911.

Well, to be fair (to me ), I'm not criticizing him for waiting for better information. I'm criticizing him--or even more accurately, expressing my utter bewilderment--that he sat there like a bump for seven minutes without seeking more information.

We don't know that he was sitting there thinking, "well, I'm sure I should just wait here for better information." He looks to more like a deer in the headlights, like he doesn't know what to do until someone tells him. And I admit to being influenced by accounts of his administration from folks like O'Neill who describe him, especially in the early days of his presidency, as relying a whole lot on Cheney and Rice and Rove for guidance. And that makes sense. He'd been a student of politics but not so much policy, and his past experience consisted mainly of being governor of Texas, which by its constitution has a pretty weak executive. Rice and Wolfowitz and the other Vulcans had been tutoring him in foreign affairs (with a definite neoconservative twist) since 98. So, I'm sure he was thrown for a loop as we all were. But still, to sit there for seven minutes after hearing "America is under attack" when you're the POTUS is amazing to me. I would think just about anyone in that situation would have enough curiosity or sense of duty to go find out what the heck was going on.

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CJ:  Either way it was a case of working with far too little. I checked this out shortly after the more detailed timelines came out and pretty much concluded that was the case. I’ll see if I can dig up the information again and post something more detailed.

Thanks. If that's the case, then that's pitiful. I'm all for deficit reductions, but, coincidentally I lost my liberal standing with some folks right before 9/11 when I argued on another board that I thought our defense should always be a top priority. Always.

Do you know anything about a rule that the POTUS is/was the only person with authority to give the order to shoot down a civilian aircraft? I've read that before, and I think that's been used as a criticism of Bush's actions in the immediate aftermath. Cheney was immediately whisked away by Secret Service to the underground bunker which became kind of a central command during the crisis, and it seems I read that there was a holdup with Norad because they couldn't get authority to shoot down a civilian airliner--or there was some confusion around it. Of course, I don't know that NORAD got close enough to fire on any of the planes anyway, which is another problem.