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Originally posted by Jason Abbadon:
Gosh. mabye he was in shock or something: I sure as fuck was and i'm just a guy in florida.

Everyone I know was in shock- to be so critical of the president during one of the most insane and confusing moments in american history (regardless of how you view Bush) is just bullshit.

It's not as though Moore would have done any better, that's for certain.

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Originally posted by Jay the Obscure:

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Originally posted by Jason Abbadon:
Gosh. mabye he was in shock or something: I sure as fuck was and i'm just a guy in florida.

Everyone I know was in shock- to be so critical of the president during one of the most insane and confusing moments in american history (regardless of how you view Bush) is just bullshit.

It's not as though Moore would have done any better, that's for certain.

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Whoa, back up there Hoss.

You darn right I expect something more from a president, and unless guess you've defined expectations down so far as to expect nothing, Mr. Bush sitting in the classroom AFTER being told about the attacks is a failure in leadership.

I expect a president to react to a coordinated terror attack with something other than shock BECAUSE he's the president and not some guy from Florida.

I expect a president to:

[*]Asses the situation

[*]React to the situation

[*]Direct the armed forces in the defense of the nation

I expect that because only the president can order civilian planes to be shot down and make other critical decisions.

And I certainly expect those things from someone who keeps telling us what a Leader� he is and that he is a War President�.

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Lauer: �You accepted the Palm D�Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival. It�s a huge honor, especially for a film like this. And you said, I think the quote was, �I did not set out to make a political film. The art of this, the cinema, comes before the politics.��

Moore: �That�s right. That�s absolutely right.�

Lauer: �I�m amazed you said it with a straight face.�

Moore: �Why is that, why?�

Lauer: �Because I think there is politics in every single frame of this movie.�

Moore: �Oh, of course there is. Don�t misunderstand me. There�s politics right now in this discussion. There�s politics in all aspects of our daily lives.�

Lauer: �But you didn�t set out to poke a sharp stick in the eye of the Bush administration and the Bush family?�

Moore: �That�s part of what I�m doing. But most importantly, listen, if I just wanted to�if it was just about the politics, if that was my primary motivation, politics, I would, you know, suspend what I�m doing right now and get out on a campaign trail.�

Lauer: �Some people say that�s what you�ve done.�

Moore: �Or maybe I should be running for office this year. I mean if politics was my main motivation I would be doing politics. But I�m a filmmaker. First and foremost the art has to come before the politics otherwise, you don�t get�the politics don�t work."

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Originally posted by Jason Abbadon:
Nothing says that was'nt going on- he could have been waiting for the helicopter to return and pick him up for all we know-or more pointedly- for all Moore's film will allow us to find out.

I point out that anything Moore insinuates as a failing on Bush's part during the attacks will be so far biased that it cant be even considered the truth without outside verificaton.

Not that 99% of the film's viewers will bother.
Thus, I'm pissed at Moore's so called "documentary" style film.

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• 8:46:40 - American Airlines Flight 11 hits the North Tower. Page 6.
  
  
• 8:55 - [B]efore entering the classroom, the President spoke to National Security Advisor
  Condoleezza Rice, who was at the White House. She recalled first telling the President it was a twin engine aircraft, then that it was commercial, saying "that's all we know right
  now, Mr. President."
  
  At the White House, the Vice President had just sat down for a meeting when his assistant told him to turn on his television because a plane had struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The Vice President was wondering "how the hell a plane could hit the World Trade Center" when he saw the second aircraft strike the South Tower. Page 20.
  
  
• 9:03:02 - United Airlines Flight 175 hits the South Tower. Page 8.
  
  
• Approximately 9:05 - Andrew Card whispered to [Mr. Bush]: "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack." The President told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis. The national press corps was standing behind the children in the classroom; he saw their phones and pagers start to ring. The President felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was
  happening.
  
  The President remained in the classroom for another five to seven minutes, while the children continued reading. He then returned to a holding room shortly before 9:15, where he was briefed by staff and saw television coverage. Page 22.
  
  
• Between 9:15 and 9:30 - [T]he staff was busy arranging a return to Washington, while the President consulted his senior advisers about his remarks. No one in the traveling party had any information during this time that other aircraft were hijacked or missing. As far as we know, no one was in contact with the Pentagon. The focus was on the President's statement to the nation. No decisions were made during this time, other than the decision to return to Washington. Page 22-23.
  
  
• 9:37:46 - American Airlines Flight 77 hits the Pentegon. Page 14.
  
  
  [ June 19, 2004, 09:47 PM: Message edited by: Jay the Obscure ]
  
  --------------------
  Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
  ~ohn Adams
  
  Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine.
  ~Brad DeLong
  
  You're just babbling incoherently.
  ~C. Montgomery Burns
  

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  Registered: Mar 1999  |  IP: Logged

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On 9/11, a Telling Seven-Minute Silence
Interpreting the President's Image in Crisis

Presidential historian Robert Dallek of Boston University thinks Bush focused too much on appearances, rather than leaping into action.

"It speaks volumes about the preoccupation these politicians have about manipulating image," Dallek said yesterday. Bush should have immediately excused himself and started figuring out what was happening and what he could do. "The way to project calm and strength is to take care of business."

Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at the University of New Orleans, concurs: "I don't understand how one sits there. I just don't. Minutes are an eternity in that sort of situation. . . . A quick presidential decision may save lives."

Brinkley credits Bush with dusting himself off after a rough first day and regaining his composure. And he acknowledges that few presidents have had to endure such a Candid Camera moment. But Brinkley adds, "Character is not defined in good times, when you've been properly briefed, it's defined when you're in a desperate crisis situation."

Presidential scholar Fred Greenstein, a professor emeritus at Princeton, defends Bush's response in the initial minutes.

"It's made a little more complex by being in the presence of little kids," Greenstein said. "It certainly wouldn't present the right message if he turned white, rushed out, and kids started crying."

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Eventually, at the suggestion of an aide, Bush got up and went to a holding room. He spoke briefly to the vice president, his national security adviser, the governor of New York and the head of the FBI, according to the commission report. Then, the report states, Bush spent roughly 15 minutes working on what he'd say to the cameras at the elementary school. He was acting as Communicator in Chief, in a sense. With his senior aides, he worked on his lines.

"As far as we know, no one was in contact with the Pentagon. The focus was on the President's statement to the nation. No decisions were made at this time, other than the decision to return to Washington," the report states. The president was persuaded to fly to Louisiana and then Nebraska before finally returning to the capital.

Joel Achenbach, The Washington Post

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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? No one knows the answer to that question. In fact, no one has even asked Bush about it.

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Brinkley credits Bush with dusting himself off after a rough first day and regaining his composure. And he acknowledges that few presidents have had to endure such a Candid Camera moment. But Brinkley adds, "Character is not defined in good times, when you've been properly briefed, it's defined when you're in a desperate crisis situation."

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Originally posted by TSN:

Admittedly, I didn't find a reference to any drugs (assuming there actually were any). But, that doesn't seem really important, since drugs weren't actually involved in the child's shooting, and it was made pretty clear that his mother didn't have a lot of choice in the matter, anyway.

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No charges are expected against the boy, and the prosecutor -- as well as many in the community -- has urged compassion for a child they say was a victim of chaotic upbringing.

The boy's father is in jail and his mother was evicted from her home a few weeks ago; the boy was staying with an uncle and another man when he found the loaded .32-caliber semiautomatic gun.

The other man, Jamelle James, 19, is accused of allowing the boy access to the gun -- even twirling it in front of him -- and was charged Thursday with involuntary manslaughter.

A search of the ramshackle one-story house turned up a bag of drugs, a loaded shotgun and ammunition. The boy's father, Dedric Owens, said people at the house traded crack cocaine for guns.

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...but I would like to hear more than one slant on his reasons for remaining at the school.

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