 The 911 President
Kriselda Jarnsaxa of Different Strings was the first person to bring this story to my attention, many, many months ago.
The picture that you see above is Bush being told about the 911 attacks. He is at an elementary school. As I know that most people will not bother to click on the link, I am taking the liberty of reprinting most of her article form her site and Virtual Occoquan below.
Links of this video have tended to disappear, so I am including this one from BuzzFlash to supplement Kriselda's.
The initial ads for the Bush re-election campaign clearly show that he wishes to exploit 911. But what did he really do for us? He declared a war on terror, and promptly lost interest in it. Over and out. He is the 911 president.
Kriselda's piece follows below.
I'm mirroring a copy of footage that The Memory Hole has obtained a from Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, taken on the morning of the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. A few seconds after the video starts, Bush's Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, comes in and informs President Bush that a second plane has hit the second tower and that America is under attack. http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/bush-911.htm">For the next five minutes, you can see him sit, listening politely to the children as they read from their story books, until the children stop reading, and the President joshes around with them and their teacher for a minute or so.
The tape ends at that point, but according to Cooperative Research's excellent analysis of the President's actions that day, he was in no rush to leave the school.
When Bush finally did leave, he didn't act like a man in a hurry. In fact, he was described as "openly stretching out the moment." [Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism - From Inside the Bush White House, by Bill Sammon, 10/02, p. 89] When the lesson was over, Bush said to the children: "Hoo! These are great readers. Very impressive! Thank you all so much for showing me your reading skills. I bet they practice too. Don't you? Reading more than they watch TV? Anybody do that? Read more than you watch TV? [Hands go up] Oh that's great! Very good. Very important to practice! Thanks for having me. Very impressed." [Transcribed from Booker video, Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism - From Inside the Bush White House, by Bill Sammon, 10/02, pp. 89-90] Bush still continued to talk, advising the children to stay in school and be good citizens. [Tampa Tribune, 9/1/02, St. Petersburg Times, 9/8/02 (B)] One student asked Bush a question, and he gave a quick response on his education policy. [New York Post, 9/12/02]
The only source to describe what happened next is Fighting Back by Bill Sammon. Publishers Weekly described Sammon's book as an "inside account of the Bush administration's reaction to 9-11 [and] a breathless, highly complimentary portrait of the president [showing] the great merit and unwavering moral vision of his inner circle." [Publisher's Weekly, 10/15/02] Sammon's conservative perspective makes his account of Bush's behavior at the end of the photo-op all the more surprising. Bush is described as smiling and chatting with the children "as if he didn't have a care in the world" and "in the most relaxed manner imaginable." White House aide Gordon Johndroe, then came in as he usually does at the end of press conferences, and said, "Thank you, press. If you could step out the door we came in, please." A reporter then asked, "Mr. President, are you aware of the reports of the plane crash in New York? Is there anything...", But Bush interrupted, and no doubt recalling his order, "DON'T SAY ANYTHING YET," Bush responded, "I'll talk about it later." But still the president did not leave. "He stepped forward and shook hands with [classroom teacher] Daniels, slipping his left hand behind her in another photo-op pose. He was taking his good old time. ... Bush lingered until the press was gone." [Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism - From Inside the Bush White House, by Bill Sammon, 10/02, p. 90]
I first read about this film clip at Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World in a post by Bob Harris. He has a suggestion for what to do while watching this film:
The White House admits that Bush fully understood what was happening. So keep this in mind while watching: in New York, as these long, precious minutes slowly tick by, people are burning horribly, people are jumping 100 stories to their deaths, and more planes are very likely headed for other targets (the Pentagon, for example, as it turned out).
Bush sits complacently, doing nothing.
Fighter planes desperately need scrambling. The Pentagon not yet been hit. This is a grave national emergency.
Five. Solid. Freaking. Minutes.
Watch the video. Watch it. Watch the damn thing.
And while you do, remember that morning. Remember where you were, how instantly you wanted to help, and how desperately you would have leapt to action given any opportunity to defend this country.
As I watched this film, I found myself feeling quite nauseated. I remember when my husband came in and told me what had happened. I was asleep, but once I comprehended what he'd said - which took maybe 30 seconds, even coming from a deep slumber - I was up, had the TV on and was online looking for more information, trying to find out what was happening, how it had happened, why, what else was expected... anything and everything I could find out. I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help, even though it was fairly obvious from the outset that there wouldn't be.
I cannot even begin to imagine what it would take to just sit there, entirely nonplussed, listening to these kids read, knowing that my country was under attack and wondering what needed to be done and what could be done to prevent further losses.
Even more interesting, though, is why the Secret Service did nothing to try and get President Bush out of the school. He was in a public place, at a pre-scheduled meeting. Anyone who'd wanted to know his planned public appearances could have found out about it. At the time he was sitting there, we had no idea what was going on. There was no way to know if the President, himself, might be a target - though an incident earlier that day, also noted in Cooperative Research's article, should have given the Secret Service detail reason for concern, especially when considered in light of the attacks themselves.
At about the same time Bush was getting ready for his jog, a van carrying several Middle Eastern men pulled up to the Colony's guard station. The men said they were a television news crew with a scheduled "poolside" interview with the president. They asked for a certain Secret Service agent by name. The message was relayed to a Secret Service agent inside the resort, who hadn't heard of the agent mentioned or of plans for an interview. He told the men to contact the president's public relations office in Washington, DC, and had the van turned away. [Longboat Observer, 9/26/01]
The Secret Service may have foiled an assassination attempt. Two days earlier, Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, had been murdered by a similar ruse. Two North African men, posing as journalists from "Arabic News International," had been requesting an interview with Massoud since late August. Ahmad Jamsheed, Massoud's secretary, said that by the night of September 8, "they were so worried and excitable, they were begging us." An interview was arranged for the following day. As it began, a bomb hidden in the video camera exploded, killing the two journalists. Massoud was rushed by helicopter to a hospital in Tajikistan, but was pronounced dead on arrival (although his death was not acknowledged until September 15). [International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, 10/30/01, Newsday, 10/26/01] The assassination is widely believed to have been timed to remove the Taliban's most popular and respected opponent in anticipation of the backlash that would occur after the 9/11 attacks. [BBC, 9/10/01, BBC, 9/10/01 (B), Time, 8/4/02, St. Petersburg Times, 9/9/02] The Northern Alliance blamed al-Qaeda and the ISI, Pakistan's secret service, for the attacks. [Radio Free Europe, 9/10/01, Newsday, 9/15/01, Reuters, 10/4/01]
On a side note, I had mentioned earlier that I'd posted my "Protest Restrictions" article to Blogcritics, and there's been a semi-active thread going in the comments section. It's been brought up that the reason for segregating people with anti-Bush sentiments to "free speech zones" where the protesters and the President can neither see nor hear one another is to help ensure the President's safety - and that given that there seem to be many people who strongly hate the President, such a precaution may be warranted. It seems odd, then, doesn't it, that the Secret Service would be so concerned about keeping people with "No War for Oil" signs away from the President, even if there is no other indication that they might be dangerous, but when the US is actually under attack and the extent of that attack is not yet known, the Secret Service has no problem letting Bush stay put, potentially endangering himself and all the children gathered there.
At any rate, take a few minutes to watch this footage. Make a mental note to yourself when Andy Card comes in, tells the President that the US is under attack, and recall your own feelings in the first few minutes after learning what happened. While it's obvious that the President can't react to feelings alone, and that he needed to extricate himself in a way that wouldn't overly frighten the children (though he had a perfect opportunity right when he was told, as they were between exercises, and he could have easily excused himself simply by telling the kids that he had something he had to attend to and reminding them that the President is sometimes a very busy man), but even given those circumstances, I couldn't imagine sitting there that calmly for that long. |
