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Well, no one suggested that it's the job of the Secret Service to run around and scream "We're all gonna Die." But it is their job to protect the President. True, we know now that individuals weren't the target on 9/11 but at 9:03 am on 9.11, I don't understand why the Secret Service would assume the best and not the worst? Wouldn't it have made more sense to err on the side of caution and prudence?

Well, no one suggested that it's the job of the Secret Service to run around and scream "We're all gonna Die." But it is their job to protect the President. True, we know now that individuals weren't the target on 9/11 but at 9:03 am on 9.11, I don't understand why the Secret Service would assume the best and not the worst? Wouldn't it have made more sense to err on the side of caution and prudence?

Yes, but there can be a conflict between the job of the Secret Service to protect the President, and that of the President to lead the nation.

The current President Bush has shown a willingness to expose himself to personal danger when leadership demanded that he act in a manner that involved personal risk. His staying in the classroom enabled 1) the government to focus on responding, rather than following him into a panic; and 2) to demonstrate clearly to the nation that the leadership of the government was not "freaking out".

Please refer to the President's actions in Chile when the Secret Service agent was pulled away from him by a crowd of hostile Chilean security agents. He stopped, walked back, and waded into the fray and pulled the agent out himself.

True, we know now that individuals weren't the target on 9/11 but at 9:03 am on 9.11, I don't understand why the Secret Service would assume the best and not the worst? Wouldn't it have made more sense to err on the side of caution and prudence?

The SS always assumes the worst. Keeping the President inside a building they already controlled WAS erring on the side of caution. Dragging him out of there without double-checking their exit route & possibly taking him *toward* danger at the airport, etc., would have been the stupidest and most dangerous thing they could do.