Bush on 9/11: "I was trying to get out of harm's way" (Poorman on Rove)

[scottxyz]

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."

Karl Rove, 6/23/05



While Bush was reading “The Pet Goat” to children in Florida and pulling the rather stupid face you see in the picture, New York firefighters were responding to the first strike of the largest terrorist attack in the history of the world.

Two hours later, while Mr. Bush was scurrying around the country, “trying to get out of harm’s way”, 343 men from the NYFD would be dead, along with 60 NYPD and Port Authority officers, and 2,420 other people, as WTC1 and 2 collapsed. Thousands of people - New Yorkers - labored to clean up the smoldering ruin, and to remove the bodies, and pieces of bodies, of their family, friends, and neighbors.

Three days later, Bush showed up at Ground Zero with a megaphone, and vowed to get those responsible. He didn’t.



George W. Bush, shown in the picture above, gained valuable training as a male cheerleader at Andover prep school -- before becoming head cheerleader for neocon chickenhawks

from The Poorman
http://www.thepoorman.net/2005/06/24/prepare-for-war/

[Lefta Dissenter]

1. recommended

for greatest page.

Thanks for posting it. :hi:

[jeff30997]

2. Mission Accomplished !

[mzmolly]

3. Ties in nicely with my thread here: *Bush not concerned with Osama*

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3953117&mesg_id=3953117

[Southsideirish]

4. "And he runned and he runned all over the place..."

[Champion Jack]

5. Well Done!

[Zookeeper]

6. I've never been able to understand the claim that Bush...

showed strength on 9/11! For cryin' out loud, he went into hiding! I was watching the news all day on 9/11, just wondering when Bush was going to get around to saying SOMETHING that might reassure the American people. I'm not a huge Guiliani fan, but he stood up and did what Bush should have been doing: letting the public know what was going on and how the government was dealing with it. And he didn't appear to be worrying about his personal safety.

I thought the way Bush "dealt" with 9/11 was yet another indication of his cowardice, starting with his deer-in-the-headlights look in that classroom. Heaven forbid, we ever have another national emergency with him in charge!

[unblock]

9. for me, it was yet another indication of how the media lie for shrub

there has always been a disconnect between the media image and the reality of shrub, but on 9/11 the gulf became a chasm.

the media decided that shrub was resolute and showed strength, found a purpose for his presidency, and calmed a frightened nation; and there wasn't a damn thing shrub could do to change their mind, no matter how hard he tried.

[Lisa]

13. I was shocked that they didn't have so much as an audio clip ...

Even if AF1 had no video broadcast capabilities (what, in this day and age?), surely they could have recorded and edited a message, something along the lines of "please everyone keep calm, we don't know exactly what's happening yet but we're doing everything we can, and I'll get back to you as soon as there's more information".

I honestly thought that this kind of thing was part of a President's job description. Instead, he blurted out something about terrorist attacks while he was still at the school (in front of all those kids, which really undermines his assertion that he didn't want to frighten them by getting up and actually DOING something).
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911.html

Then he scurried off to Louisiana and dashed off another vague statement (and I recall that he looked frantic and not at all reassuring):
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911-1.html
(even Bush's people don't know exactly when that happened ... but as someone watching the news coverage that morning, it sure felt like quite a long time)

And then, NOTHING -- not a peep out of him until his broadcast from the White House that night.

The US is the most wired society on Earth. Its leader is specially trained and briefed about every conceivable emergency. Yet he couldn't or wouldn't see fit to reach out to his people, at regular intervals during what for many of them was the most frightening day of their lives? He, whose image is built on being "folksy" and "a people person"?

[fooj]

7. He's nothing but a coward!

:grr:

[ginnyinWI]

8. oh he's more than a coward...

He's a coward Chickenhawk Vietnam-evader who set himself up as commander-in-chief even though he doesn't know the first thing about war or combat or injury or death and thinks it's all like a really cool video game where he gets to play and win and get all the glory except that he is a big-time screw-up who can't think or govern in any meaningful way and has alienated our allies in the process and spent our treasure and betrayed our troops who are there and facing the real realities of war and who ought to be ashamed of himself but instead boasts that he's the war president and thinks that he can make it true just by saying it!
:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[confludemocrat]

10. Dropped off the face of the earth: Where are the counterattacks on Rove!

By big name Democrats? Is that ugly smear being left in the past? Just wondering, haven't been glued to TV or DU of late.

[Champion Jack]

11. KICKED

[wallwriter]

12. King of the Chicken Hawks

"Trying to get out of harm's way." We should emblazon that everywhere, along with "Mission Accomplished."

[applegrove]

14. Had the President been Al Gore or Kerry, McCain - men with actual combat

experience he would have stuck closer to home and not been so easily swayed to fly around the country. Needless to say - ANYONE would have walked out of that classroom with a quick "oh kids - the President has some important business to attend to - I talk to you later" and left in order to assume command.

In the Bush White house at the time - NOBODY WITH actual combat experience except for Rumsfield in Korea.