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chookie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 12:54 PM
Original message
"That was some bad pilot!"
This phrase is, famously, His Chimperial Highness's first thought when told a plane had crashed into the WTC.

Does this sound like the reaction of a guy who was fixated like a laser beam on terrorism and Al Qaeda from Day One, who now claims he was briefed on a daily basis on terror threats?

And now NeoCondi said yesterday, "In June and July when the threat spikes were so high...we were at battle stations...
 The fact of the matter is that the administration focused on this before 9/11."

If they were all so tensely alert, so high that the FAA had been on notice for months, why did His Chimperial Highness not conclude it was a terror attack? Gee -- I just read the papers every day and don't get special briefings or have access to global alerts, and no one bothered to tell me about the FAA alert (although I assumed something was up when The Crisco Kid stopped using commercial airlines) -- and *I* figured out it was a terror attack immediately. Funny.

Sorry NeoCondi and Your Chimperial Highness -- your bullshit just does not add up, and although your coverup is pretty damned odious, you are covering up for even more odious crimes.
 
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Sparkly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 12:56 PM
Response to Original message
1. Even weirder
he claimed that he made the "terrible pilot" remark when he *saw* the first plane hit the first tower on a TV that morning, which is impossible.
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SpaceCatMeetsMars Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:01 PM
Response to Reply #1
6. Yes, he ADMITTED that he knew about the first plane BEFORE he
Edited on Thu Mar-25-04 01:02 PM by CalamityJane
went into the classroom. That leaves two choices - 1. He would have to be a complete and total idiot if he didn't know it was bin laden, or - 2. He knew, but chose to ignore it and went into the classroom, then STILL sat there for at least 8 minutes after hearing about the second one. Then the question becomes WHY?

Either way, he is not fit to be president and people should know the truth.
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Zero Gravitas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:06 PM
Response to Reply #6
12. because he had no idea what to do
and was waiting for someone smarter than himself (Condi, Card, Cheney, von Rumsfeld, the school janitor, one of the kids in the class) to tell him what to do next.
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Cocoa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:36 PM
Response to Reply #12
22. that's my answer too
it explains everything.

In one account, Ari Fleischer holds up a piece of paper for Bush to see with "DON'T SAY ANYTHING YET" written in block letters. This is in the classroom, post-Andy Card.

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LastLiberal in PalmSprings Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:06 PM
Response to Reply #6
13. Even stranger
The principal of the school said the only t.v. * could have seen on his way to the classroom was turned off and unplugged at that time.
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Sparkly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:26 PM
Response to Reply #13
17. Not only that
Nobody had a live camera on the first tower when it was hit. A tape came out later, but there was no live shot.
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RobertSeattle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 12:57 PM
Response to Original message
2. I bet the WH PR people hate that he ever said that
"That was some bad pilot" goes down as one of those most moronic phrases ever said by a President.

Reminds me of the old quote, "it is better to hold ones tongue and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."



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Sparkly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 12:58 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. I guess it was his only excuse
for staying at the school, reading. (What was his excuse after the second plane hit??)
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BOSSHOG Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:05 PM
Response to Reply #4
10. Was he really reading or just looking at the pictures?
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RedSock Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:11 PM
Response to Reply #2
15. but he said it in public TWICE
Edited on Thu Mar-25-04 01:11 PM by RedSock
December 2001 and almost one exactly one month later -- January 2002
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noiretextatique Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:35 PM
Response to Reply #2
21. not just moronic: it was sociopathic!!!!
considering he was purporting to be the so-called "leader" of the country where the "bad pilot" hit a building, killing a bunch of people. :grr: sociopath is the correct word for someone like that :grr:
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KansDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 12:57 PM
Response to Original message
3. "In June and July when the threat spikes were so high..."
"...we were at battle stations..."

So Bush goes on a 30-day vacation...??? :shrug:
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RoundRockD Donating Member (426 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:00 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. He is an embarrassment to this country! n/t
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Frances Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:04 PM
Response to Reply #3
9. Exactly.
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enough Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:11 PM
Response to Reply #3
14. I think there's a great anti-Bush add here, KansDem.
I hope Kerry's people pick up on this.
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chookie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:28 PM
Response to Reply #3
18. Yeah right, "Battle stations"
Maybe I am just too much of a "Type A" personality, but if I had been part of "The Loop" that Cheney talks about, and if if had been me rather than young George in those briefings that George Tenet gave, and that Clarke tried to give -- I would NOT have gone on vacation. Like Clarke, I wasn't even IN the loop, but I was a bit more corried about this stuff than they seemed to be.

Of course, it was a working vacation -- as George went off on his "Heartland" tour and preached about his tax cuts.

Cheney's Battle Station, you may recall, consisting on giving speeches nationwide on his new energy policy, which included such brilliant insights as "If you don't want to pay high energy bills, use less electricity."

Yep -- they sure were poised for all emergencies that could unfold. /sarcasm off
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skypilot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:02 PM
Response to Original message
7. Actually, the quote is...
"There's one terrible pilot. It must have been a horrible accident"
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chookie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:22 PM
Response to Reply #7
16. Thanks for the correction
My point remains: if His Chimperial Highness had been so painstakingly well-briefed on the terror threat, and had focused his monkey brain so utterly on Al Qaeda from Day One -- why did he not think that it was a terror attack?

We know from O'Neill's book that "briefings" to His Chimperial Highness were monologues. His Chimperial Highness never interrrupted with comments, nor did he ever raise questions.

His Chimperial Highness laughed off O'Neill's revelation by saying "Yeah -- his briefings were so BORING! that I could hardly stay awake!"

I wonder if George Tenet's briefings were more amusing and entertaining and kept young George's attention better than Paul O'Neill's. Maybe he used hand puppets, and used story-telling techniques like kindergarten teachers use --

Tenet: We don't like Al Qaeda because they are...
GW : POOPYPANTS!
Tenet: Try again....
GW: EVILDOERS!
Tenet: And the CIA snuck up on the big bad Ayatollah and went...
GW: BOMB BOMB BOMB!!!!!!
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skypilot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:30 PM
Response to Reply #16
19. I understand your point perfectly.
Edited on Thu Mar-25-04 01:35 PM by skypilot
In fact, it was this quote that made me suspect that there was more behind 9/11 than meets the eye. I originally thought the success of the attacks was due to incompetence on the part of this administation but that "terrible pilot" statement changed my mind. He is so obviously "playing dumb" when he says that.

On edit: I posted about this in a LIHOP thread yesterday.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1275670#1278943
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HootieMcBoob Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 02:14 PM
Response to Reply #19
24. Especially since they knew that there were at least 4 planes
that had been hijacked.

Couldn't they put 2 and 2 together - literally and figure out that something big was up?
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whistle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:02 PM
Response to Original message
8. So, can the Kerry ads...
...use this statement to inform the public of Dubya's grasp of the situation? If the other side is going to attack, let's go on the offensive and bring up all of the Bush-isms that are on record. After all, GW did say, "....I stand by all of my misstatements.":dunce:
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Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:06 PM
Response to Original message
11. How long until Smirko realized he hit the "Trifecta?"
What a lucky, lucky man. He's never made an honest bet in his life. The guy's an inside trader, if you know what I mean.
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Terran Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:33 PM
Response to Original message
20. All the lies and evil are coming back on them now
To defend themselves from Clarke's charges, they have to pretend they were "at battlestations", as Condi has said, as of June/July 2001. And yet this how we know Bush reacted in the first hour of 9/11--not exactly a man who's alert to a possible terrorist attack. It shows that they are lying in their offense against Clarke.

This has to be spread around as much as possible! Write to you local papers on this theme!
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DoYouEverWonder Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 06:14 PM
Response to Reply #20
28. How come no one went to battle stations on 9-11?
Instead they all sat on their hands until after the Pentagon was hit? They all couldn't be that stupid?
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seabeyond Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 02:08 PM
Response to Original message
23. when i saw plane go into building
the first plane wasnt shown til the next day

the shot of the second plane was while he was in class

ergo:
he saw it in the car t.v. and who was taping it.

he just saw a burning building in the car and misspoke and/or lied about when he heard about it

he doesnt know wtf he is talking about....why lie

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leftchick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 02:32 PM
Response to Original message
25. Very telling also when contrasted with Clinton's first thought on 9/11...
Bill Clinton said when he was in Australia heard the news, saw the WTC on tv his first thought was al-Qaeda. He also hopped on a plane and made it to NYC before chimpass*. I miss having a president with a functioning brain.... :(
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Lisa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 06:08 PM
Response to Reply #25
27. and on the other side of the world, Al Gore had the exact same thought ...
He was in Austria for a meeting.


http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0211/19/lkl.00.html

KING: Where were you in Europe?

A. GORE: Vienna, Austria. There were some young Internet whizzes from Europe there who patched up a connection through the Internet that enabled us to communicate, and Tipper assured me that everybody was all right. I knew right away it was Osama bin Laden. Anybody in...

KING: Bill Clinton, on this show, a couple weeks ago -- he was in Australia -- said as soon as he saw it, he said, Bin Laden.

A. GORE: Absolutely.

KING: You said it too?

A. GORE: Said it to the people there with me. No question about it.
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Lisa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 05:53 PM
Response to Original message
26. I'm not sure which of these is worst ...
1) Bush REALLY DID think of such a flippant, callous remark at the time. Everybody I know who saw that a jumbo jet, a Cessna, or for that matter a motor-scooter had crashed into a building, would be asking "was anybody hurt?"

2) That Bush would think it funny to share that thought with the public (including people whose family members had died in an unbelievable state of fear on That Day).

3) That Bush would decide, months after, to make a foolish joke in order to make himself seem tough and "in control" when talking about his reactions to the attacks -- because he didn't want to tell what he was TRULY thinking, or because he was in such a state of panic that he cannot remember what was going through his mind. Maybe that's the best response he could create, when he had weeks to consider a question which he knew darned well he would be asked sometime ("how did you feel when you heard about the terrorist attack?") by everyone from 3rd-graders to eminent journalists and historians.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011204-17.html

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paulthompson Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 06:36 PM
Response to Original message
29. Recent Wall Street Journal article
Has this story finally admitted as a lie:

The arrival of the presidential motorcade was marked by a cacophony of cellphones: staffers at the White House calling colleagues on the trip with news of the first plane crash into the World Trade Center. Within seconds, aides had informed the president. At the Dec. 4, 2001, town-hall meeting in Orlando, Mr. Bush said, "I was sitting outside the classroom, waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly myself, and I said, 'Well, there's one terrible pilot.' " Several weeks later, he said essentially the same thing at another public event in Ontario, Calif. Actually, no scenes of the first plane hitting the Trade Center were broadcast on television until late that night, when amateur video footage became available. The TV in the room where Mr. Bush waited wasn't even plugged in, according Ms. Rigell, the principal. "It's just a mistaken recollection" on the president's part, his spokesman, Mr. Bartlett, said in an interview. "There were lots of things going on fast at the time."

Also note how some of the others have lied about what they were doing (from another post I made recently):

I've just started reading the Clarke book, and already I'm finding some remarkable things in the first chapter.

Basically, we're finding out that what many of the key officials say they were doing on 9/11 is a lie.

Dick Cheney:

In the Clarke book on page 2, he is about to be evacuated from his office to the White House basement as Clarke finishes talking to him. The timing isn't exact, but it appears to be about 9:05 to 9:10. Yet Cheney himself says he was evacuated after 9:30. Here's my timeline entry. Note that even Cheney's official photographer disputes his account:

(After 9:03 a.m.) Secret Service agents burst into Vice President Cheney's White House office. They carry him under his arms - nearly lifting him off the ground - and propel him down the steps into the White House basement and through a long tunnel toward an underground bunker. ("Just after 9:00," ABC, 9/14/02 (B), around 9:06 when Bush is being told of the second WTC hit, New York Times, 9/16/01 (B), same time Bush is being told, Telegraph, 12/16/01, shortly after Bush's speech at 9:30, CBS, 9/11/02, 9:32, Washington Post, 1/27/02) At about the same time, National Security Adviser Rice is told to go to the bunker as well. (ABC News, 9/11/02) Accounts of when this happens vary widely, from around 9:03 to 9:32. But since ABC News claims Cheney is in the bunker when he is told Flight 77 is 50 miles away from Washington, accounts of this taking place after 9:27 appear to be incorrect (see (9:27 a.m.)). The one eyewitness account, David Bohrer, a White House photographer, says it takes place just after 9:00. (ABC, 9/14/02 (B)) Why doesn't this happen to Bush at the same time? Are reports of this happening to Cheney later spin meant to make Bush remaining in public seem less strange?

Richard Myers, acting Joint Chief of Staff:

In the Clarke book, page 5, Myers is talking to Clarke and others at 9:28 for sure, and possibly earlier. Yet according to his own testimony in front of congress two days after 9/11, he says he didn't even know there was an emergency until after the Pentagon crash at about 9:38.

(After 8:48 a.m.) Air Force General Richard Myers, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sees the first WTC crash on television. Myers will be acting Chairman of the US military during the 9/11 crisis because Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Henry Shelton is flying in a plane across the Atlantic. He sees the TV in an outer office of Senator Max Cleland, but he says, "They thought it was a small plane or something like that," so he goes ahead and meets with Cleland. He says "nobody informed us" about the second WTC crash, and remains oblivious that there is an emergency, only leaving the meeting with Cleland right as the Pentagon explosion takes place at 9:38. (AFPS, 10/23/01, ABC News, 9/11/02) Yet, in testimony on September 13, 2001, he states, "after the second tower was hit, I spoke to the commander of NORAD, General Eberhart. And at that point, I think the decision was at that point to start launching aircraft." (Myers Confirmation Testimony, 9/13/01) NORAD claims the first fighters are scrambled even before the first WTC hit. (NORAD, 9/18/01) Which of Myers' statements is the lie, or are both of them lies?

Note Myers even contradicted himself in that testimony. I assume Myers was under oath for his confirmation hearing. Can he be convicted of perjury for his lie then?

Donald Rumsfeld:

Minutes after the Pentagon is hit, and someone tells Clarke, "A plane just hit the Pentagon," Clarke replies, "I can still see Rumsfeld on the screen, so the whole building didn't get hit." A short time later, Rumsfeld says that smoke is getting into the Pentagon secure teleconferencing studio. Pages 7 and 8.

Yet Rumsfeld has always maintained that he went outside and helped load wounded into ambulances for the next hour! Timeline entry:

(9:38 a.m.) Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is in the Pentagon meeting with Representative Cox (R), and is apparently completely oblivious of the approaching Flight 77. As he watches TV coverage of the WTC, he says, "Believe me, this isn't over yet. There's going to be another attack, and it could be us." Supposedly, "moments later, the plane hit." (Telegraph, 12/16/01) Rumsfeld is apparently psychic, because two minutes before the first WTC crash and supposedly completely ignorant of the hijackings, he predicted a terrorist attack upon the US (see 8:44 a.m.). Rumsfeld's office is on the fourth floor of the Pentagon, relatively near the impact. He later says that just after the explosion, "I went downstairs and went outside. And around the corner and of course, there it was." He claims he immediately began helping the wounded: "There was a, a young woman bleeding, sitting on the ground, and I think she said to me, she didn't know who I was, she said, she could see people holding, drips going into people, IV of some kind, and she said, something to the effect, if people would, if someone could bring that person over, I could hold it." (ABC News, 9/11/02) He helps load the wounded into ambulances until 10:30 (see 10:30 a.m.). (Minneapolis Star Tribune, 9/12/01)


From Clarke's wording, it seems likely Rumsfeld was already teleconferencing BEFORE the Pentagon was hit.
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