Seven Minutes of Shame
On the morning of September 11, 2001 , President George W. Bush sat in a classroom listening to a children's story and reading along. Andrew Card went up to him and whispered in his ear that the nation was under attack from terrorists.
For the next seven minutes, the President sat, mute and motionless. People in the two towers were burning to death. People were hurling themselves from the windows and splattering on the New York pavement. A city was panicking. America was under attack. Yet there he sat, looking like a deer caught in headlights.
There are those that try to justify Bush's inaction with lame excuses. What else could he do? He didn't want to alarm the children. He was demonstrating confidence in his staff. John Kerry sat for 40 minutes when it happened!
What else could he do? How about excuse himself and assess the situation somewhere else? After all, if it is possible that he is a target, should he endanger the children with his continued presence?
He didn't want to alarm the children? He never would have had to. He could have calmly stood up and said something like, “Excuse me, children. It's been wonderful getting to visit with you and I thank you for having me here. Unfortunately there are some Presidential matters I must attend to. I hope I can come back for a longer visit sometime soon.”
He was demonstrating confidence in his staff? If I were President, I wouldn't leave anything like that to chance. I'd make damn sure everything was under control. Isn't it their job to get his ass out of danger immediately? To get him to a safe place where he can assess the situation and issue executive orders, if need be?
So, John Kerry sat for 40 minutes. So what! He wasn't President. There was nothing for him to do. It wasn't his job. Certain folks made very sure of that, remember?
We must keep in mind that Bush was in the National Guard as an officer. While there, he should have been trained in the chain of command and how to respond to an attack on our soil. Was he trained at all? Did he forget his training?
How anyone can simply brush off Bush's inaction in the most important minutes of Bush's term is unbelievable. Now, we can't call his inaction completely incompetent. To do so is almost an insult to the sheer incompetence he has shown since then.
I have to say that Bush was showing anything but calm and confidence. I've seen the footage of him sitting there, scared shitless, indecisive, and very nervous. I'm almost willing to bet that he shat his pants while he sat there. What was he waiting for? A foot rub and a cigar? Maybe for someone to come and wipe his bum-bum and feed him applesauce? Where was the “decisive” President then?
Those seven minutes proved once and for all that he is unfit to lead this country. He couldn't think. He couldn't act. He couldn't do a thing without his staff wet-nursing him and constantly telling him what to do and what to say. Is that leadership? Where was that take-charge attitude he's purported to have? Where was his “Bring ‘em on” smirk that day? Why didn't he ask a single question of his staff?
Furthermore, it wasn't just seven minutes he wasted. He spent another 20 minutes doing a photo op. He was doing a PR move while bodies burned and splattered.
Some say that to criticize the President for those seven minutes of inaction is a cheap shot and might be construed as “mean”. I say that not criticizing his inaction in those minutes is to bury one's head in the sand and remove all doubt of one's idiocy, gullibility, and lack of social irresponsibility. That anyone would feel safer under Bush for another four years strikes me as the most insane and idiotic thing imaginable.
Perhaps he should have continued to do nothing for the rest of his term. It would have been less dangerous than what he's done since.
To add to this article, here is Bill Maher's take on this issue:
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.