Sun, August 15, 2004
"Dammit, The Poky Little Puppy helps me think!"—9:19 AM
Our president explains his decision to remain in a second-grade classroom for seven minutes or so after being informed of the terrorist attacks in New York City.
"I was collecting my thoughts."
And that took seven minutes? It seems like collecting his thoughts couldn't take more than 15 seconds. (Ha!)
Brandon — Sun, 8/15/04 5:03pm
The Post story is saying five minutes, and calling Moore's seven-minute claim "erroneous." So is five minutes the official administration line? "Nah-uhh, that was so not seven minutes. It was totally five. Andy Card has a really cool watch with like, a stopwatch in it, and he timed it. So there. Showed you. Phlbbbttt!"
Collecting his thoughts. Okay. You are the President of the United States. You have (or at least you should), working under your command, a group of some of the finest military and political minds in the country. Wouldn't it be an awfully good idea to:
1) get to the secure phoneline that was likely waiting somewhere close by,
2) talk to those military/political geniuses - who are, most likely, gathering all the pertinant details and preparing to disseminate it to you - so that you, as President, can have all the information you need to start making decisions, and
3) THEN start collecting your thoughts?
Look, I'm not expecting anyone in that situation to tear off their clothes, reveal brightly-colored tights and a cape and start leaping over tall buildings in a single bound. But I do expect that you would, at the very least, immediately get in contact with the men and women you've hired for this very purpose, and not sit with the kids and "collect your thoughts."
"michwagn" — Mon, 8/16/04 9:49am
While I think that the 5-7 minutes wait shouldn't be much of a campaign issue, I do think that it is important. What if Al Qaeda had pulled off a more coordinated attack? What if they had other planes leaving from LA headed to Vegas, Denver, Chicago? If that was the case, we needed to act very, very quickly. It should have dawned on the president that this was a quick-strike plan and since we had no idea it was coming, we had no idea how long it would last.
The 9/11 report shows how ill-prepared the FAA, CIA, FBI, and NORAD folks all were at being ready for this. Communication was frighteningly poor. But I think that if the attack had been larger, having a president get up, say, "I'm so sorry kids, but I have to go attend to some business to help keep the country safe" that would have been great. Then, he could have started a more coordinated effort rather than have some calls going to him, some to Cheney, some to the Sit Room and some to nowhere.
Would we have had time to shoot down the plane that hit the Pentagon? I have no earthly idea, but it'd be useful to look at the timeline and try to figure out whether the president's participation in the response would have been more useful had it begun eariler.
Bee Boy — Mon, 8/15/05 5:16pm
Knowing what we now know, it's clear what he was thinking about: that famous PDB, "Bin Ladin Determined to Attack in U.S."
He was thinking: "So this is what the definition of 'in' is?"