[LurkerNoMore!]

On an FR thread last night, you said this:

Shortly after the incident, on one of the 60 Minutes type programs, Minetta was pinned to the wall on whether the plane was shot down or brought down and he totally weaseled with: "Some combination of both."

I'd be very interested in a link, or any actual evidence Minetta said this anywhere, much less "on a 60 Minutes type program".
I haven't been able to find it yet.

[Askel5]

I don't watch a lot of television but did have it plugged in during the aftermath of the dramatic attacks on US soil.

I stand by my recollection. Because I was not cooking at the time, I'm almost confident it was a weekday, not a Sunday program.

If I were looking, I'd check the transcripts of 60 minutes 2 and 20/20 first and then check the TV schedule to see what other similar type programs it might have been. It aired within a couple weeks of the bombing.

If we still had the ability to use Google properly to search FR threads for text strings OR the old search functions on FR, it's possible I could dig up the several threads on which I quoted him within days of the broadcast.

[Askel5]

The reason it caught my interest is because I too wondered why the military didn't just "do its job" and blow the plane out of the sky immediately instead of tracking it. With three hits already, it seemed odd they were delaying ... in the hopes of some heroic action by passengers.

The interviewer laid the foundation quite carefully vis a vis the passenger initiatives alleged to have taken place and the obligation of the military to defend. Minetta didn't respond to "so was this plane shot down" or "do you think the passengers were successful" but when the reporter said "or could it have been some combination of both", he echoed in reply, "some combination of both".

I thought the "some combination of both" response an outstanding bit of Orwellian speak by Minetta.