If it's from the NY Daily news, it's probably accurate, though still
slanted (as opposed to the NYT where it would be fabricated AND
slanted.)
Read this one entitled "Kerry 'couldn't think' right after 9/11
attacks."
http://tinyurl.com/64cnr
Enjoy.
Denys
-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Connie Sellitto
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 12:11 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT : Another POLITICAL story (yet another...).
Fellow listers - Note: this is from the NY Daily News, not the NY
Times...
<http://www.nydailynews.com/front/v-pfriendly/story/221323p-190107c.html
>http://www.nydailynews.com/front/v-pfriendly/story/221323p-190107c.html
New York Daily News -
Bush blew it
the morning of 9/11
By Bill Maher
Wednesday, August 11th, 2004
John Kerry has waded into an issue raised by Michael Moore in his
film "Fahrenheit 9/11," namely, President Bush's sitting for seven
minutes in a Florida classroom after being told "the country is under
attack." Republicans are waxing indignant, of course. But the
criticism is richly deserved.
The fact that Bush wasted 27 minutes that day - not only the seven
minutes reading to kids but 20 more at a photo op afterward - was, in
my view, the most outrageous thing a President has done since
Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court.
Watergate was outrageous but it still did not carry the possibility
of utter devastation, like a President's freezing at the very moment
we needed his immediate focus on an attack on the United States.
This is an issue about the ultimate presidential duty, acting in an
emergency. If nothing else in Washington is nonpartisan, this should
be.
But it is not. Republicans are tying themselves in knots trying to
defend Bush's actions that morning. The excuses they put forward are
absurd:
* He was "gathering his thoughts." This was a moment a President
should have imagined a thousand times. There is no time in the
nuclear age for a President to sit like Forrest Gump "gathering
thoughts" after an attack has begun. Gathering information is what he
should have been doing.
* From the White House press secretary: "The President felt he should
project strength and calm until he could better understand what was
happening." I agree that gaining a better understanding of what was
happening should have been his goal. What I don't get is how that
goal was reached by just sitting there instead of getting up and
talking to people. Is he a psychic? Was he receiving the information
telepathically?
* "He didn't want to scare the children." Vice President Cheney has
said of Kerry, "The senator from Massachusetts has given us ample
reason to doubt the judgment he brings to vital issues of national
security." So Kerry's judgment is suspect, but at a moment of
national crisis, Bush's judgment was: Better not to scare 20 children
momentarily than to react immediately to an attack on the country!
If he had just said, "Hey, kids, gotta go do some President business
- be good to your moms and dads, bye!" my guess is the kids would
have survived.
I cannot see how someone who considers himself a conservative can
defend George Bush's inaction. Conservatives pride themselves on
being clear-eyed and decisive. They don't do nuance, and they respect
toughness.
But Bush choked at the most important moment a President could have.
We're lucky Al Qaeda had done its worst by the time he pulled himself
away from the photo op. Next time, it might not be that way.
Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher."
--
cs/CFA
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