Okay, which is it? Did you "see" the first attack or were you "told" about it?

[KansDem]

I had been notified that a plane had hit the world trade center.
National Geographic promo (0'50")

I was sitting outside the classroom...waiting to go in...and I saw an airplane hit the tower...the TV was obviously on...I used to fly myself and I said 'There's one terrible pilot.
YouTube (0'26")

So, Mr. "Commander in Chief," which is it?

Did any of the 9/11 tributes and memorials yesterday ask this question?

[Broderick]

1. Who knows, all Republicans lie. He was the liar in chief.

Personally, I got an email. I then rushed home to check on the other half, and turned on the TV and within a minute or so the second plane hit. Freaky day.

[gateley]

2. You're right - both can't be correct. I don't recall seeing

footage PRIOR to the SS whispering in his ear so I'm not sure if he was looking queasy then or not. Do you recall?

After the whisper he definitely looked as though something was wrong.

[KansDem]

3. Maybe some of the crack reporters in the Fourth Estate should ask him what he meant...

I, for one, would like to know...

[gateley]

13. Crack reporters? Oxymoron. nt

[BeFree]

4. He saw it on FBI/CIA cable vision

No doubt. He even said as much. He blurted out the truth.

And people will make excuses for him, even here on DU.

[KansDem]

7. When he said he was "notified," he then goes on to say he thought it was "light aircraft."

No biggie, apparently. Gave him a (Bush) reason (or excuse) to continue with the photo-op.

But anyone seeing the video would not mistake the airliner as "light aircraft."

[MoonRiver]

5. IMHO, Team * LIHOP.

I have absolutely no doubt it was a carefully orchestrated ignoring of an attack they knew was imminent. They knew most of the details and players. Intel regarding the upcoming attack was stuffed and lies were devised to cover-up their criminal "negligence." Horrific.

[Richardo]

6. .

.

[MineralMan]

8. I did not see the first plane hit the building. The breaking news

came on during the morning news in California. The second plane, however, I saw clearly, since it happened while cameras were on the fire in the first building. That may be the source of some of the confusion. The second plane hitting the building was seen by just about everyone who was watching the news that morning.

[justabob]

15. that is the way I remember it

I was watching Today and the way I remember it, one of their off duty producers called in and reported hearing or seeing the first strike because they lived down there by the Trade Center. As the minutes progressed, the second plane came along and we all saw that strike. I don't think any footage of the first strike came to light until a little later, but that I am not certain of. I may just be remembering the second strike over and over.

[pintobean]

9. The 9/11 tributes and memorials yesterday weren't about Bush

or investigations or conspiracy theories.
Unrecced for truther baiting.

[KansDem]

20. "Conspiracy?"

You mean like the conspiracy theory that 19 attackers (15 from a country friendly to the Bush family) armed with box cutters slipped through American and foreign intelligence to highjack four airliners even though the CIA knew some of them were here a year before the attack but for some reason the FBI didn't investigate even though Bush received a warning with the August 6 PDB and afterwhich Bush ordered all of Osama's relatives living in the US to be flown safely home the day after the attack before the FBI could interview them and then decided with Cheney to invade Iraq? That "conspiracy theory?"

Oh, wait...it's no longer a "conspiracy theory"...it's now the "official account."

[coalition_unwilling]

22. The 'official account' is a 'coinicidence theory'. I always tell folks

they're welcome to dismiss me as a conpiracy theorist (w/ regard to 9-11), as long as I can dismiss them as a 'conincidence theorist.' That usually shuts them up. If they persist in their insults, I refer them to David Ray Griffin's magisterial "The New Pearl Harbor".

[uppityperson]

34. The memorials weren't about shrub, but this IS a good question. Rec to counter

I am sure he meant he was told about it, but am also sure he "mispoke" or lied about this. A minor lie in the big scheme of everything that he did, but still, it was a lie.

[TxVietVet]

10. bu$h/cheney took an oath to tell the truth for the investigation.

IF and WHEN a conservanazi is called to an inquiry and is not sworn it, it is 100% probability that the bastard is going to lie. The conservanazi WILL NOT tell the truth..

bu$h/cheney LIED. Thousands DIED.

[coalition_unwilling]

23. Actually, I believe neither Bush nor Cheney swore an oath before

testifying jointly before the 9/11 Commission. That let me know the fix was in.

[TxVietVet]

40. IT didn't take much figuring that the fix was in with those two lying bastards.

Testifying together, without taking an oath. What a rotten bunch of bastards!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

36. They should have been made to answer questions in court

and should be behind bars now

[John1956PA]

11. I don't trust him, but maybe he saw the aftermath of the first jet's strike on the north tower.

Afterward, when he made the statement, "I saw an airplane hit the tower," perhaps he misspoke. Or, perhaps, his memory of exactly what he saw on the school's TV was a conflation of (i) the image of the north tower after the first strike, and (ii) later-viewed recorded images of the second jet's strike on the south tower.

[KansDem]

14. Could be...

But still, he said he saw the first plane hit the tower before he went into the classroom. Then he said he was told about it and he said he told his staff to see what they could do to help. Then he went into the classroom. Then Andrew Card came in and told him about the second attack after he was in the classroom. Then we get this:



I just want someone in the media to ask him to explain himself...to clear up the confusion.

[Javaman]

12. in morons* world, he's right on both accounts.

what ever story fits the current narrative is what works.

See?

the ministry of propaganda is having problems with their memory hole.

[lynne]

16. There was no video of the first plane hitting the tower until much later in the day -

- a camera crew was in lower Manhattan filming a documentary and happened to catch the first plane going in but that footage wasn't available to us until later that day or maybe even the next. At least, that's how I remember it.

There were photos of the fireball from the first plane, footage of the building burning from the first plane, and footage of the second plane hitting.

Not sure why or if it makes any difference as to what he said he saw. Quite possible he saw a photo of the fireball and referred to it as seeing an airplane hit the tower when what he actually saw was where an airplane hit the tower.

[John1956PA]

26. Your scenario matches what I surmised in my post No. 11 above.

Again, I do not trust him or everything he says, but he could have seen on the school's TV (just before entering the classroom) only the fireball which resulted from the first jet's strike on the north tower. At that point, he was (we hope) possessed of essentially the same knowledge as the rest of us who assumed that the first aircraft's strike on the north tower had been the result of an accident. My theory in post No. 11 above is that, after the events of the day played out, during which he saw recordings of the second jet striking the south tower, his memory could have deceived him into thinking that what he saw on the school's TV screen before he entered the classroom was not only the fireball raging from the north tower after the strike, but the preceding impact of the aircraft into the north tower.

On edit: I admit that my theory has problems. Why would he later say (as reported above) that he initially thought (before he entered the classroom) that the first aircraft which struck the north tower was a light aircraft THEN THEREAFTER confuse the imagery of the second jet striking the south tower with the by-then-disproven premise that a "light aircraft" struck the north tower. In other words, when he stated that he saw, on TV, the first plane strike the north tower, what kind of mental image was he drawing upon? By the time he made the statement, he knew that the first aircraft which struck the north tower had been a jet.

[ProfessorGAC]

27. That's My Recollection As Well

Seems like late in the day, the guys filming something with firemen a few miles away captured it when they heard the plane coming over that low.

That footage wasn't, as i recall, even part of the coverage all afternoon.
GAC

[subterranean]

17. Why was there a TV outside the classroom?

:shrug:
I've never seen an elementary school that had TVs in the hallways.

[KansDem]

28. It's a mystery...

...and why he should be asked to clarify his remarks.

Did he "see" it or did he "hear" about it?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

37. maybe he had a TV in his limo?

[WinkyDink]

18. Nobody but the videographers saw, in real time, #1. UNLESS BUSH HAD FOREKNOWLEDGE.

THEN he might have watched a closed-circuit video.

THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND HERE.

[NYC Liberal]

19. Actually many people saw the first plane hit.

Of course, they were the people right in the area. Bush could not have seen it.

[WinkyDink]

24. They were all looking up at the top of the WTC North? What New Yorker does that when walking?

[NYC Liberal]

31. People looked up because of the very loud noise of a plane flying extremely low.

Also, I can tell you that my father saw the first plane hit from his office window about two blocks from the WTC. He happened to be looking out the window.

[treestar]

21. He was notified, so he heard it. Then he saw it on TV

Which could have happened, as TV replayed it all day long and has replayed it constantly for the past 10 years.

What sounds stupid to me is Bush bringing himself right in (to brag that he was a pilot) and be so stupid as to surmise it was caused by bad piloting.

[WinkyDink]

25. He could not have seen the first hit until later. BTW: Don't you think it was SICK of him, as PRES.

to MOCK A PRESUMABLY DEAD AMERICAN PILOT??

BUSH IS A PSYCHOPATH.

[treestar]

32. Yes. Bush is frivolous in his comments.

And on such a thing, that is not appropriate. He was joking around about it and that is not a subject on which one jokes around. Bush has bad judgment.

[MorningGlow]

29. Which, I think, proves he never saw it

I admit that I thought the same thing as Bush when I heard about the first hit (egad what a thing to admit :scared:). I was working at a TV station, but I was in the back room (Web department) and we didn't have the TV monitor on. My coworker, a graphic designer who always fancied himself a crack reporter, called my desk from where he was wasting time in the break room (where the monitor was always on) and told me a plane just hit the WTC. He was always a major Chicken Little, "alerting" me to "breaking news" that turned out to be nothing, so I was skeptical. My first reaction was to snicker and roll my eyes because I thought it was a small aircraft whose wing nicked the corner of the building. Yes, I did think "What a crappy pilot--how do you not avoid a giant building in your path?" But I turned on the monitor, saw the smoke and flames, and immediately knew that wasn't no Cessna.

[Evasporque]

30. pick any two...nt

[young_at_heart]

33. Please MSM---do your job!!

The media has allowed way too many unanswered questions. It's downright sickening!

[starroute]

35. When Bush used a word like "obviously" he was always lying

I remember I used to point out examples from time to time back when it still mattered.

I also recall a thread here discussing somebody's suggestion that alcoholics tend to make things up to fill in the holes in their memory, or to stitch together what they do remember in a way that seems to make sense, even if they can't recall the actual sequence of events.

So perhaps Bush wasn't lying so much as he was creating a false memory.

According to the standard timeline of that day, the first plane hits the North Tower at 8:46. The first vague news reports appear at 8:48, but there's no video until hours later.

Bush arrives at the school at 8:51. So it's possible he was given news of the first plane either in the car or as he was entering the school, and he may even have *thought* "what a terrible pilot." He might at most have seen a bulletin about it on TV -- though that seems unlikely, because schools don't typically have televisions on in the hallways.

But there's no way he could have seen news video of the impact. And it's hard to believe that he would have continued with his planned activity at the school if his party had already known there was something going badly wrong.

The second plane hit at 9:02. Andrew Card informs Bush of this at 9:05 and Bush acts shocked.

[starroute]

38. I found threads from 2004 and 2003 where I talked about this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x201705

starroute
Tue Aug-19-03 09:49 PM

3. But he'll pretend it's actually a decrease

Asked about U.S. force presence in Afghanistan, Bush said the U.S. presence is being "gradually replaced" by other troops.

"We've got about 10,000 troops there, which is down from, obviously, major combat operations," he said. "And they're there to provide security and they're there to provide reconstruction help. But both those functions are being gradually replaced by other troops. Germany, for example, is now providing the troops for ISAF , which is the security force for Afghanistan, under NATO control. In other words, more and more coalition forces and friends are beginning to carry a lot of the burden in Afghanistan."

In fact, the 10,000 troops in Afghanistan represent the highest number of U.S. soldiers in the country since the war there began. By the time the Taliban government had been vanquished in December 2001, U.S. troops numbered fewer than 3,000 in Afghanistan. And three months later, in March 2002, when the last major battle against remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda took place in eastern Afghanistan, about 5,000 U.S. troops were in the country.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2003_08_17_atrios_archive.html#106129713015521513

I get very nervous when Bush uses the word "obviously." It reminds me too much of his claiming he saw the first plane hit the World Trade Center because a tv was "obviously" on in the school corridor. It's got this weird "You are now entering the Twilight Zone" quality about it.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1406836

starroute
Wed Apr-14-04 02:23 AM

When Bush says "obviously," does it mean he's lying?

I just watched parts of the horror show for the second time, and was struck by Bush's answer to the question about it coming out today that the 8/6 PDB was exaggerating about there being 70 of something (terrorism alerts?) from the FBI. The reporter asked if Bush was aware of this, and Bush said something like, "I obviously found out today."

That immediately set my radar off, because it sounded so much like Bush's claim that he was able to see the first plane hit the WTC because there was "obviously" a tv on in the corridor.

So my first question is whether this strikes anyone else the same way, and whether you can think of any other times he's used "obviously" to cover up an outright lie. (I think there was at least one, but I'm not recalling the circumstances.)

And my second question is why might he lie about this? Was he simply not aware of it before being asked the question and trying to cover up? Or could there be something deeper going on?


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1681278

starroute
Fri May-28-04 12:04 PM

11. Scarily accurate -- this could explain a lot

It's always been a puzzle to me why Bush seems to just plain make up transparently false stories.

The fib about seeing the first plane hitting the World Trade Center (and saying that a tv was "obviously" on in the school hallway) is only the best known. There was another example in last month's press conference, when Bush was asked a question about the August 6, 2001 briefing and answered something like, "I obviously only found out today."

I've assumed he was just a compulsive liar, and that he was using the word "obviously" to maintain a certain deniability. But if he actually has massive memory gaps and is filling them in with stories which he himself believes, that would explain a lot.

It would also make it more terrifying than ever to have the country and the world at the mercy of such a man.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

39. This is a man who dodged military service....

...and the M$M turned it into a debate about fonts.

Imagine if Obama had fudged his story about this? He'd be impeached.

[Matariki]

41. Do you think the secret service notified him about the 2nd plane

and he saw the first on tv?

I remember the news made the first plane seem like a possible accident.