Eyewitness to History

[kandrathe]

While watching the TV coverage on Sept.11/2001, I expected the President to head immediately back to Washington to present an image of courage and control to a shocked nation. Instead, he ran like a rabbit and hid in a hole until he figured it was safe. By comparison, the King almost immediately made a radio broadcast to reassure the nation, lending his courage to a nation under siege. I'm sure that his actions helped give the British people the resolve to carry on through the attacks that lay ahead, and to survive the years of war.

It's America's loss that they lack a leader who values the welfare of the nation less than his own butt.

I'm sorry, I think you may have been watching too many movies. We don't need a Rambo in the Whitehouse, we need a leader who is responsible and takes appropriate actions. When multiple planes start crashing into things, from New York, to Washington DC, to Pennsylvania -- the responsible thing to do is to stay safe and be ready to lead and do your job when the dust settles. You may respect the General who leads his men into battle, but that is just a stupid romantic notion (like firing a courtesy warning shot to alert your enemy before engaging and broadsiding him). How many planes did they have? It could have just was well been 25 or 50. The nation was stunned, but not in a panic, so having the President get on the airwaves to calm the populace was unneccesary and probably irresponsible. He knew as little as we did, so he wouldn't have informed us of anything other than how clueless they all were.

IIRC, he was in Florida speaking to some elementary school children. When the second tower fell, he was informed and immediately went back to AF1 (a mobile command HQ) and did his job. If history will judge GW Bush harshly it will be because he used 9/11 to further his agenda, rather than to rally the world, and our nation to the new cause of rooting out this evil, and preventing it from happening anywhere else. Immediatly after 9/11 the citizens of the world were prepared to respond, but that good will was squandered because this administration plodded on with their unilateralist Wolfowitz Plan.