What if, just what if, we'd had an adult in the White House on 9/11 instead of a drunken idiot?

[HopeHoops]

Would the warnings have been ignored? Would it even have happened? And if it did, would we be stuck in two useless wars?

Your thoughts?

[SpiralHawk]

1. "As if...Smirk." - Commander AWOL (R)

[HopeHoops]

5. "I gots ta go do some readuling taday. Whar's mah J.D. bottle?"

"Kids jest loves how I learns them some smarts."

[raccoon]

2. We had The Dick. nt

[HopeHoops]

8. Yeah, that sure helped. We all took it up the...

ASS-umption that invading Iraq was a good thing to do.

[Richardo]

3. I say it would not have happened. And if it did, he would have lost in a landslide in 2004...

...and if he were a Democrat he probably would have been impeached BEFORE 2004.

[MindPilot]

10. I agree with that.

I believe 9/11 happened because of the Bush presidency. That was a strike against the BFEE, not the American people.

[sharesunited]

16. Agree completely. We were attacked because Baby Bush was installed by family friends.

[Richardo]

17. I'm not saying that. I'm saying it would have been planned and foiled by someone paying attention

Like the Millennium bomb plot for LAX.

[PDJane]

4. depends on the adult.......

If there had been a man who didn't plan on going to war, being a war president, and didn't have the whole GOP behind him, neo-cons and all, yes.

However, the military-industrial complex has been chomping at the bit.

[SpiralHawk]

6. "How many deferments do you need to qualify as an adult?" - xVP Dickie Cheney (R)

"I'm just checking, because even though I only had like five military deferments, which is pretty good even for a republicon war profitee, me and xCommander AWOL Bush sure do want to be recognized as, um, adulterists, or whatever."

- xVP Dickie 'Five Military Deferments' Cheney (R)

[grytpype]

7. How about before 9/11?

[spoony]

9. It would've happened, and it'll happen again

because so far no one, adult or not, has moved to decrease our imperial presence in the mideast.

[jmowreader]

11. Al Gore was Clinton's go-to guy on terrorism, so I don't think it would have happened

Rather, the ticket agents would have known to be especially cautious and when nineteen men who couldn't have telegraphed what they were any better if they'd had "Kiss Me, I'm a Hijacker" t-shirts on would have been taken upstairs for a nice long talk with airport security...and the police...and the FBI...

On September 12, there would have been a little story about 19 suspected hijackers being taken into custody at two Northeastern airports, and that would have been the last you'd ever heard of it.

[HopeHoops]

14. Yeah, funny how they knew all 19 names the next day, eh?

Obviously they just picked out the "muslim-looking guys" from the security tapes. :sarcasm:

[Cleita]

12. You mean like Al Gore, the legitimately elected President?

Although we may never know, I speculate that there wouldn't have been a 9/11 because President Gore would have paid attention to the warnings and I also speculate, he wouldn't have run away from Washington in September even though he knew there was a chance there would be an attack.

[Vogon_Glory]

13. Roll Your Date Back to August

Let's pretend that we had a real adult in charge back in August.

I personally believe that had Al Gore been President, at least one of those airliner attacks would have been thwarted. I doubt that Gore would have ignored the warnings about increased al Qaeda activity, and I doubt that he would have been quite so trusting of what the Saudis had been telling him as the guy we got instead.

I also believe that it's possible that at least some of the 9/11 conspirators would have been arrested. I suspect that FBI director Louis Freeh would have been out in early 2001, and at least somebody in the FBI would have been encouraged to step forward.

I also think that there might have been air marshals on some of those flights, just as Richard Nixon put air marshals on some US flights during the Cuba hijacking scare.

I still think that some of those attacks might have gone on regardless, so there might have been one successful hit on the WTC, and possibly the Pentagon, but not all four.

But there would have been one critical difference between the Republicans' response to 9/11 had Gore been in charge than there was under Dubya--the Repuds would have been howling for Gore's resignation or impeachment.

[HopeHoops]

15. Although not explicit, I meant to imply "up to and including".

[Vogon_Glory]

19. We're Generally in Agreement, Let's Not Fuss n/t

[HopeHoops]

21. Okay, but NO Vogon poetry. Agreed?

[Vogon_Glory]

27. Only if I save those poems for reactionary right wing web sites. n/t

[SpiralHawk]

26. ...And I believe that since the Pentagon had over an hour warning

That if we had a real leader -- instead of Republicon chickehawks -- the Pentagon might have at least mustered a pea shooter to defend itself on 9/11, instead of NOthing. Nothing at all. Nothing. Doodley squat. Zip. Zero.

[valerief]

18. then we wouldn't have had 9/11. nt

[Andronex]

20. I tought...

we had we had something called the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, NORAD, and so many other security agencys working to keep America Safe on 9/11... so it's Bush Fault.

Bush role was to be a lightening rod for the "alleged incompetence" but everything went accordingly to plan. The agenda is spelled out in the neocon PNAC document written before 9/11, which most of the people in the Bush administration signed, it even refers to a new pearl harbour event to motivate the american public for endless war.

[HopeHoops]

23. I'm glad somebody ELSE remembers the PNAC document.

Invading Iraq was the plan all along and that document specifically mentions the need for a "catalyst event".

[jimshoes]

22. I've always felt the dick was pulling all the strings

that awful day. Junior was as far out of the loop as they could get him.

[HopeHoops]

24. He was WASTED!

As usual.

[krispos42]

25. We needed one from January 20th 2001 onward

We had Bush/Cheney instead.


Historians for thousands of years in the future will note that, at a critical time in US and world history, Americans put a fucking idiot in charge. A person with an organization that was very good at getting what they wanted, but very bad at deciding what they wanted.