'We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases."
"So why, at 9:03 a.m. - fifteen minutes after it was clear the United States was under terrorist attack - did President Bush sit down with a classroom of second-graders and begin a 20-minute pre-planned photo op?"
I don't know. Because he didn't see the point in scaring the children in that classroom? Because the reality of what was happening in downtown Manhattan was beyond what he could imagine? At about 8:45 AM on 9/11, I got into an airport shuttle headed for Newark, and the driver told me and the other passenger that a plane had just hit one of the WTC towers. Our reactions? She laughed. I rolled my eyes. None of us had any frame of reference for that event.
Lena Cuisina
at September 13, 2003 8:45 PM
I'm with Lena, the premise of the question is bogus. It *WASN'T* clear fifteen minutes before the photo op that the States were under attack. These timelines, culled painstakingly and provocatively over two years from tens of thousands of sources, belittle the meaning of that morning, lived one life at a time.
Pierce has a bunch of this stuff up this week too. It's pathetic. This piece isn't even gratifying as innuendo. The best point to be made about Bush's public appearance that morning: Who --besides the teacher's unions-- really thinks executive branch power has anything to offer education at the local level? I.E., why does this (dyslexic) man think we're paying him to be photographed with our schoolchildren? And he's a REPUBLICAN, fer Chrissake.
But it's apparent that this foolishness is starting to gel. Even if it's just human nature, I'm embarrassed for my generation! This is every bit as pathetic as the pissyfits between the Grassy Knollers and the Single Bullet Theorists we had to endure in my childhood. Warren Commissions are but fuel to their paranoid fires.
A vague, unending fear of being deceived by dark and powerful forces is not an honorable substitute for skeptical, critical thinking. Yes, the planet really is as shitty as we worry that it is. To move the world forward, people have to be engaged morally, and we have to deal with policy. That means thinking about stuff that's complicated, reading things that are drab and difficult to understand, and working to be smarter than we want to have to be.
Answering our personal feelings of doubt with suspicious rhetoric doesn't help.
Cridland
at September 13, 2003 10:13 PM
Tired of this anti-Bush dystopia. Almost everywhere I go in CA, I can't escape it. I was reading my grandfather's entry on that day and the first thing he did was blame Bush with colorful words for 9-11. Denial of the truth seems to enliven anti-Bush sentiment.
Actually, I think it's really essential that we question government and those who are governing us, be they Dem or Republican. I'm neither -- but I have a lot of questions -- about whether the Monica Lewinsky mess led Clinton to fail to pay the required attention to Al Quaeda, and questions about Bush's actions on that day (some of which are raised in the link) and failures of NORAD, etc. Being a citizen in a democracy doesn't mean rubber-stamping what leaders do, but actively questioning it.
"So why, at 9:03 a.m. - fifteen minutes after it was clear the United States was under terrorist attack - did President Bush sit down with a classroom of second-graders and begin a 20-minute pre-planned photo op?"
I don't know. Because he didn't see the point in scaring the children in that classroom? Because the reality of what was happening in downtown Manhattan was beyond what he could imagine? At about 8:45 AM on 9/11, I got into an airport shuttle headed for Newark, and the driver told me and the other passenger that a plane had just hit one of the WTC towers. Our reactions? She laughed. I rolled my eyes. None of us had any frame of reference for that event.
Lena Cuisina at September 13, 2003 8:45 PM
I'm with Lena, the premise of the question is bogus. It *WASN'T* clear fifteen minutes before the photo op that the States were under attack. These timelines, culled painstakingly and provocatively over two years from tens of thousands of sources, belittle the meaning of that morning, lived one life at a time.
Pierce has a bunch of this stuff up this week too. It's pathetic. This piece isn't even gratifying as innuendo. The best point to be made about Bush's public appearance that morning: Who --besides the teacher's unions-- really thinks executive branch power has anything to offer education at the local level? I.E., why does this (dyslexic) man think we're paying him to be photographed with our schoolchildren? And he's a REPUBLICAN, fer Chrissake.
But it's apparent that this foolishness is starting to gel. Even if it's just human nature, I'm embarrassed for my generation! This is every bit as pathetic as the pissyfits between the Grassy Knollers and the Single Bullet Theorists we had to endure in my childhood. Warren Commissions are but fuel to their paranoid fires.
A vague, unending fear of being deceived by dark and powerful forces is not an honorable substitute for skeptical, critical thinking. Yes, the planet really is as shitty as we worry that it is. To move the world forward, people have to be engaged morally, and we have to deal with policy. That means thinking about stuff that's complicated, reading things that are drab and difficult to understand, and working to be smarter than we want to have to be.
Answering our personal feelings of doubt with suspicious rhetoric doesn't help.
Cridland at September 13, 2003 10:13 PM
Tired of this anti-Bush dystopia. Almost everywhere I go in CA, I can't escape it. I was reading my grandfather's entry on that day and the first thing he did was blame Bush with colorful words for 9-11. Denial of the truth seems to enliven anti-Bush sentiment.
Cecile at September 14, 2003 8:51 AM
Actually, I think it's really essential that we question government and those who are governing us, be they Dem or Republican. I'm neither -- but I have a lot of questions -- about whether the Monica Lewinsky mess led Clinton to fail to pay the required attention to Al Quaeda, and questions about Bush's actions on that day (some of which are raised in the link) and failures of NORAD, etc. Being a citizen in a democracy doesn't mean rubber-stamping what leaders do, but actively questioning it.
Amy Alkon at September 14, 2003 11:58 AM