I found the following comment on my Wicktory Wednesday post. His comments are in italics, mine aren't. I already answered in Comments, but thought I would expand a bit.
mattcable2506 wrote:
Just 'cause I'm curious, how do conservatives justify Bush's seven-minute hesitation in the classroom on Sept 11, 2001?
As I stated, I can only speak for myself. I've posted previously on the seven-minutes, and again in comments. I don't consider myself to be conservative, although I am more conservative than I am liberal. I don't consider that seven minutes to be anything but fact gathering time by staffers. No one knew what was happening, nor did we know a second attack would be coming.
When I was in the Navy back in 1998, my ship was traveling between Italy and Malta and the lights suddenly went out. We immediately started going to General Quarters and would have started opening up repair lockers, opening up ammunition storage, putting on uniforms, etc. The lights came back on before we could get very far.
Thank you for your service. I honestly do appreciate the time you gave to your country. Your actions as you describe sound reasonable to me under the circumstances you were in. When the lights go out in my house (a poor analogy perhaps, but one I can relate to), I start looking for the reason. Did we blow a circuit? Are the lights in the neighborhood out? Do I hear sirens? What's the weather like? What's going on? Where's the flashlight?
Why did we react that way? Because we didn't know what was going on! When there is any doubt whatsoever, a real leader would have headed for a command post, a place where he could have received reports and from where he could have issued orders. Any base or ship would have sufficed, Air Force One was within driving distance. Once he'd got to Air Force One, where would he have had it fly to? Who cares? What matters is, he should have gotten there.
I believe that a "real leader" can wait a few minutes to find out the facts. Had he been told there were multiple attacks in different areas, I might question the wait myself. But, when President Bush was told of the Trade Center "incident", no one knew there would be a second attack. It didn't happen until after the seven minute interval. At that point, we didn't know it was anything but a terrible, unbelievable accident. I believe that a "real leader" gathers as many facts as possible before taking action. After speaking to the press, he did go to Air Force One where he could get reports and where orders could be issued. As we now know, nothing could have been done in that seven minutes that would have saved the second tower. Why go off on a tangent with as few facts as he had at the time? I believe he acted reasonably and intelligently at the time.
One question: on your ship, I'm sure there was a captain. Did he (or she) start looking for the problem, or did he rely on other people to give him information? I'm reasonably certain that the captain, if not already on the bridge, started in that direction (heading to the command post) expecting information to be waiting for him when he got there. Also knowing that the personnel on the ship would be going about their duties as the situation demanded. President Bush could go on reading to the children knowing that his staff was gathering information and that he would be able to go on camera with all the knowledge and information that was available to him at that time.
How do conservatives justify his lack of action?
Again, I can speak only for myself. I don't see a "lack of action." I don't see where he needed to do anything but what he did at the time. Since we are talking about the famous "seven minutes", I won't speak to the action that was taken later.
Matt, I doubt that I can say anything that will make you believe anything but that Bush is anything but a "real leader." We apparently have different ideas of what constitutes a "real leader."
5 comments:
How about asking Matt what Sen. Kerry did at that same time. According to published reports, the Senator was in a meeting in Sen. Dachille with others who were in stunned silence after learning of the second plane hitting the Towers.
They said they were unable to think until they saw the smoke rising from the Pentagon after that plane hit it ... some 40 minutes after the second plane hit the WTC.
For my money, President Bush said a prayer and started to plan action. Was he scared? Who knows! I bet he was scared, who wouldn't be?
But 7 minutes is hardly worth mentioning. To most people, 40 minutes isn't that much either.
Then again, *most* people aren't fancying themselves as Presidential material.
C:
From Mattcable2506@yahoo.com - I've put your comments in italics and my own in plaintext.
As I stated, I can only speak for myself. I've posted previously on the seven-minutes, and again in comments. I don't consider myself to be conservative, although I am more conservative than I am liberal.Blogger.com has a feature where, after you've posted, you can jump from recent post to recent post. I ran across your post and said to myself "Ah, here's a pro-Bush person. I've had a question about the seven minutes of 9/11 anf now that Michael Moore has brought them to public attention (I was aware of them about a year before), I'll see what she has to say about them." Sorry if I interpreted "pro-Bush" to be interchangeable with "conservative"
Should he have gone hysterically before the cameras and said that a plane went into the Trade Center but we don't know what happened? That would have looked very intelligent, don't you think?No, but as many have pointed out, no one has suggested that he should have looked all wild-eyed, thrown up his hands, ran screaming out of the room, tripping over chairs and tables, etc., etc. A polite, calm "Hey kids, I've got important presidential business to attend to. See ya." would have been fine.
But, when President Bush was told of the Trade Center "incident", no one knew there would be a second attack. It didn't happen until after the seven minute interval. At that point, we didn't know it was anything but a terrible, unbelievable accident.Now here we have a serious disagreeement on the facts. My understanding is that he was informed of the second plane going into the second World Trade Center tower while in the classroom. I've read that he was informed of the first plane before he even entered the classroom. Should he have reacted to that? I think he should have, but I can fully understand if he thought this was an isolated, one-time problem and not a general problem that required an immediate response. I'm fully prepared to agree to disagree on that.
I believe that a "real leader" gathers as many facts as possible before taking action.And where's the best of all possible places to gather facts? In a command center! If you need to know what the radat shows, no need to call some guy in a nearby city and have him verbally describe what he sees, just wander over to where the command center keeps the radar screen and have a look at it.
One question: on your ship, I'm sure there was a captain. Did he (or she) start looking for the problem, or did he rely on other people to give him information?The problem didn't last as long as a full minute, so there was not even an announcement as to what the problem was. Yes, the captain relies on other people to give him information, but I'm baffled as to why anyone in command would leave the gathering of information up to his subordinates. If, as you're presuming, the president was informed of the first attack in the classroom and he was not aware of any other information (We don't know if he was or not as that was covered in a confidential meeting with the 9/11 Commission.) then yes, his actions were reasonable.
We apparently have different ideas of what constitutes a "real leader."Nah, we're in broad agreement on that, we just disagree on the facts of the case. Anyway, that satisfies my curiousity as to why people don't see the president as having been derelict in his duty.
BTW, to the comment: Kerry was not in charge at the moment, so his actions were neither here nor there.
BTW, to the comment: Kerry was not in charge at the moment, so his actions were neither here nor there.So let me get this straight... the actions of Senator Kerry as a sitting Senator has little bearing since he was not in charge. So the emphasis the Senator himself has placed on his actions 30 years ago has even weight?
If so, then his actions during the September 11th attack is even more revealing!
Simply put, Sen. Kerry's biggest deficit was revealed by his Convention speech. He spoke at length of his military service, and spoke of one tangible action he took in Congress -- joining Sen. McCain in a bill regarding POWs. While an admirable bill, indeed, it shows he performed painfully little in almost 20 years in the Senate.
C:
That's correct. Senator Kerry was "out of the loop" as they say. He was not formally responsible for US military responses, he was not privy to what various folks said about people running around "with their hair on fire" concerning various threat warnings, etc.
As a Senator, he had overall responsibilities for oversight and budgeting, but not for any item that would directly affected the attacks of September 11th.
Wasn't he on the Senate Intelligence Committee? Seems that I heard in just the last few days that his attendance was pretty dismal. I can't find it now, but his attendance was as bad as his last year's voting record. And, didn't he vote against bills that would have helped fund the intelligence agencies? And the military?
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