Sarasota Principal Defends Bush

Re: Sarasota Principal Defends Bush
Two non-arguments here.

Foxfyre wrote:

"I don't think anyone could have handled it better," Tose'-Rigell told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in a story published Wednesday. "What would it have served if he had jumped out of his chair and ran out of the room?"

Dont think anyone's suggesting he should have "jumped out of his chair and ran out of the room".

Just calmly getting up, announcing that unfortunately, grave state matters demanded his attention, and taking his leave in an ordered matter would still have gotten him out in touch with his staff, army and cabinet without evoking a sense of chaos or panic.

This - "oh, you're saying he shouldnt have done [white] - like, as if doing [black] would have been any better!" kind of argument is getting very, very tiresome.

Foxfyre wrote:

Bush told the federal 9/11 Commission, which released its report last week, that he remained in the classroom because he felt it was "important to project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening."

Yeah, I would also want to "better understand what was happening" if I heard my country had just come under attack.

So, how does a President optimally get to "understand what was happening"?

By sitting in front of a classroom where the only way, after the one short whisper, to communicate with him is to hold up signs from the back of the classroom, like Andy Card did I believe?

Wouldn't, like, being accessible for cabinet members, CIA, FBI, whoever - who might want to share information with you, discuss what decisions are necessary, brief you on the immediate dangers of the situation - be a better way to get to "better understand what was happening"?

Or is that just me?

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At the time it was happening nobody knew for sure. I am quite sure the president's aides/staff/secret service were on the phone monitoring just about everything during those seven minutes. If there was anything needing the president's immediate attention and or direction while they determined what was happening, I'm quite sure they would have so advised him.

There are some who think leadership means you jump up or calmly get up and micromanage everything. Some would think a leader would expect his staff to advise him as necessary.

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All of you saying Bush should have done something,exactly WHAT should he have done?
Since we didnt know what was happening in the first 7 minutes,should he have left.
Did ANY of you know that we were being attacked that fast? Did ANY of you think it might have been a tragic accident,pilot error,or any number of reasons.We didnt know we were being attacked till the second plane hit.

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well, I asked my neighbor the plumber about what he would have done during those 7 minutes and he asked me if I was paying union scale or not.

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actually i guess if mr. bush was my president i also would have preferred him not to try to micromanage anything, when my country was attacked ... safest to keep him there with the kids.

perhaps thats what his staff was thinking too? Mr. Green

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The thing is if Bill Clinton had done the exact same thing as Bush did during those seven minutes, the anti-Bush people would be vigorously defending and justifying his behavior here. Not one of you, however, knows exactly what was transpiring between Bush and his staff, not one of you can say definitively what you would do in the same position, and to use seven minutes to condemn a president is in my opinion the height of pettiness. I appreciate an honest principal who puts it into perspective even though he wasn't a 'Bush man'. I think we need a whole lot more of that kind of reasoning and a lot less of manufacturing things to use for criticism.

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"The thing is if Bill Clinton had done the exact same thing as Bush did during those seven minutes, the anti-Bush people would be vigorously defending and justifying his behavior here."
You may be right, Foxfyre, I don't know. I can't see that as being Clinton's reaction, in any case.
But by the same token, if it had been Clinton and he had sat there for 7 minutes, you know full well you guys would be all up his ass!

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Foxfyre wrote:

The thing is if Bill Clinton had done the exact same thing as Bush did during those seven minutes, the anti-Bush people would be vigorously defending and justifying his behavior here.

I dont have all that much up with Clinton, for one. And I know that many American posters here did not vote Clinton in 92 or 96. So, I dunno. Perhaps you're projecting your own behaviour here?

Apart from basically being another non-argument, this one also kind of boomerangs right back to you. I mean, you talk about how they "would be vigorously defending and justifying his behavior" as if it'd be a bad thing. So why is it a good thing if you do it with Bush?

Foxfyre wrote:

Not one of you, however, knows exactly what was transpiring between Bush and his staff,

Ehmm ... he was sitting in front of that class talking to a group of kids. The only way, apart from the one whisper which we know verbatim, that "his staff" had to communicate with him was by holding up some sign from the back of the class or something. What all could have been "transpiring between Bush and his staff" in those seven minutes? Does he have some kind of implant that allows him to communicate with them without actually talking with them?

I dont actually think, myself, that Bush could have made all that much of a difference - not even taking into account that he's Bush, and all that, either (though I think that as President, he should at least have tried). But the defences that are being put up for his behaviour here are so inane that somehow I cant help getting back to this discussion. I mean - we don't "know exactly what was transpiring between Bush and his staff"? We know where he was and what he did, and we know that he did not talk with any of his staff for the seven minutes after being told about the event. So, err, how does this "transpiring" go about then, exactly?

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mysteryman wrote:

Did ANY of you know that we were being attacked that fast? Did ANY of you think it might have been a tragic accident,pilot error,or any number of reasons.We didnt know we were being attacked till the second plane hit.

The infamous "seven minutes" occurred after Bush had been advised of the second plane hitting the WTC. Your turn.

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jofromchicago

Quote:

The infamous "seven minutes" occurred after Bush had been advised of the second plane hitting the WTC. Your turn.

that's what makes it seem odd for Bush to have just sat there knowing that both towers had a plane crash into it. To me it was more important for Bush to first gotten himself and his staff to a place of safety and to have then got in touch to find out all the particulars than it was to project calm to people who were not upset in the first place because they didn't know what was going on and even if they did, it just seems that getting the president out of harms way takes precedent over keeping people calm.

I am going to see the movie later this afternoon. I feel weird going to a theater to see a documentary but I want to see it for myself after hearing so much about it. I saw the passion for the same reason and I found that all the critisim was more than it deserved.

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Unless you can tell me what the staffer who 'whispered in Bush's ear' said, you have no basis, other than partisanship, to criticize the president's behavior in this. For all we know, the staffer told him what had happened and that they didn't know any details and they would keep the president advised. Therefore he could have left the reading and stood around with his hands in his pockets waiting to hear from New York or Washington. Or he could keep his cool and continue with the kids and trust his staff to handle it.

And would the 'right' have been all over Clinton had he continued a reading in this circumstance. Only the numb nuts. I have often defended Clinton and others whom I would never vote for when I felt he/they was/were unfairly criticized or condemned. I think many of us would not think seven minutes enough to commend or condemn.

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foxfrye

I am willing to drop this point. If you believe that Bush better served the country and the office by sitting there for seven minutes even after he already knew the WTC was attacked once back when Clinton took office, even though he knew that Osma Bin Laden had plans to attack America and that a plane had already hit one trade center, then that's your belief and I would just as soon leave it at that now.

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I Noticed nobody answered my question.
In that 7 minutes,did Bush or anyone know ABSOLUTELY,that the US was under attack?
Did anyone know,without any doubt,that it was terrorists?
I dont beklieve Bush or anyone in his administration KNEW that with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY,so what would you have him do?
It is quite possible that he thought,like many of us,that it was a tragic accident.
Why wont any of you Bush haters concede that?
Are you so gead set on hating him that you refuse to consider any other scenario?

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mysteryman wrote:

I Noticed nobody answered my question.

Ehm ... somebody did, actually. Look back up. Or here it is again:

joefromchicago wrote:

mysteryman wrote:
Did ANY of you know that we were being attacked that fast? Did ANY of you think it might have been a tragic accident,pilot error,or any number of reasons.We didnt know we were being attacked till the second plane hit.

The infamous "seven minutes" occurred after Bush had been advised of the second plane hitting the WTC. Your turn.

Or are you saying that even after the second plane hit the WTC, we still couldnt have been sure it wasnt just "a tragic accident"?

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This "7 minute" issue is a perfect example of Bush opponents taking every possible opportunity to slam the man, and trying their hardest to make everything he says or does a negative of incredible proportions.

No one, but Bush, knows what was going on in his mind during those seven minutes. Perhaps he froze, or perhaps he was mentally running through a checklist of his options.

I am convinced that if he jumped up and assumed a "take charge" attitude he would have been criticized, by Michael Moore and his pals, for unnecessarily frightening school children just so that he could look tough.

In order for the seven minute "delay" to have any bearing on anything, it needs to be shown that in those seven minutes, the president could have done something that would have led to saving lives or capturing the bad guys. Anyone care to try?

Unfortunately, suzy is correct that some Clinton bashers would have made the same big deal out of the seven minutes if Clinton had been president, but all that proves is that the obsessive Bush bashers are just as big a bunch of idiots as the obsessive Clinton bashers.

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Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

In order for the seven minute "delay" to have any bearing on anything, it needs to be shown that in those seven minutes, the president could have done something that would have led to saving lives or capturing the bad guys. Anyone care to try?

Best attempt to sketch what he could have done that I've seen here was by BBB. Well, OK, only attempt. Not that I agree with all of it, but at least it gives some indication that he could have done some useful stuff.

Of course noone can prove that hypothetical action A or B would "have led to saving lives", let alone to "capturing the bad guys". Actually, noone's saying that much, either, so ... moot point. Just saying that he could have done stuff that might have helped in coordinating an optimal state response - might have helped more than him just sitting there, unaccessible to staff or cabinet but for emergency messages.

Then again, you could see it another way. We may know pretty well, in fact, what was transpiring between staff and President - but its true that we dont know exactly what was transpiring among the staff and Cabinet. Just that when America was attacked, they thought it wiser to keep Bush out of the loop when formulating and coordinating the emergency response. Interesting, that.

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nimh wrote:

Best attempt to sketch what he could have done that I've seen here was by BBB. Well, OK, only attempt. Not that I agree with all of it, but at least it gives some indication that he could have done some useful stuff.

If this is the best attempt, then my point is made.

There is absolutely no reason, whatsoever, to believe that any of the actions suggested by BBB would have saved lives or helped catch the bad guys.

And if anyone thinks that even an instantaneous order to evacuate the Pentagon would have made a difference, they are deluding themselves.

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Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

There is absolutely no reason, whatsoever, to believe that any of the actions suggested by BBB would have saved lives or helped catch the bad guys.

Thats OK cause thats not actually the case most of us have been making, as I already pointed out in my previous post.

Of course the President couldnt have caught the bad guys or saved those people in the WTC in those seven minutes.

That does not mean he couldnt have been of more use than he was reading a story to those children.

Again with the black and white thing.

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nimh wrote:

Just that when America was attacked, they thought it wiser to keep Bush out of the loop when formulating and coordinating the emergency response. Interesting, that.

You keep alluding to this. Why is this so "interesting"?

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Do I ("keep alluding to" that)?

What's "interesting" in it, to me, is that I find it surprising that the WH staff, Cabinet, intel agencies - whoever had to be instantly formulating and deciding on emergency responses to what was happening, right then - apparently did not think that the President would have anything crucially helpful or necessary to contribute.

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Sarasota Principal Defends Bush

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