Posted on 05/19/2004 7:45:48 AM PDT by Sir Gawain
CANNES, France -- Two questions involving the duration of events: (1) So how long, exactly, was the standing ovation for Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"? And (2) Did President Bush actually remain in a Florida classroom, reading from My Pet Goat, for seven minutes after he was informed of the second attack on the World Trade Center?
Moore's anti-Bush documentary was received rapturously at its black-tie screening here Monday, and a friend told me the ovation lasted 25 minutes. In my report I suggested that Cannes ovations, like the estimates of parade crowds in Chicago, have a tendency to be exaggerated. Since I attended an 8 a.m. press screening, I was not inside the Palais des Festivals to clock it myself.
Now I have another source. The ovation lasted 20 minutes, according to Variety, which may be correct, because its reporters all carry stopwatches to check the running times of movies.
In any event it was "the longest ovation in the history of the festival," according to Thierry Fremaux, the festival's director. At a party Monday evening, I asked Moore. "It depends on when you start counting," he said. "Do you start with the beginning of the closing credits or when the lights go up? When they just wouldn't stop clapping, I walked out and they kept applauding in the lobby."
And as for Bush's delay in reacting to the attack on the World Trade Center? Conventional wisdom has it that the president was reading to schoolchildren when he got the news and quickly left the room.
The Moore version: He was informed of the first attack, went into the room anyway, was informed of the second attack, and remained with the students until a staff member suggested that he leave.
"The teacher in that Sarasota classroom happened to tape the whole event," Moore told me. "We'd seen other footage from the networks, but it was all edited. She just left the camera running. She said nobody had ever asked her for the film. Bush didn't instinctively jump up and go into action, but just stayed on autopilot until someone told him what to do."
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
I'm no Bushbot; in fact I've used that term here and have been referred to as "Comrade" at times. Criticizing Bush for his actions at the school on 9-11 is non-sensical. It's making mountains, not out of molehills, but out of valleys.
Payne's plane never went off course; it was in the air for over 45 minutes before they lost contact with the pilot. 30 minutes later they scrambled jets to take a look.
Facts would help.
Well at least you are being honest about the banter that goes on at a Libertarian meeting.
From the looks of it, he spends much more time masticating.
Stewart's plane was in the air for hours and was not actively attempting to avoid detection. Ground air controllers had plenty of time to help track it down. The hijacked jet airliners were minutes out from their targets at the time the air response team first learned the nation was under attack, and the hijacked planes were hidden in a sea of planes in the air at the time with no indication which one of them might be hostile for many long minutes. You could not possibly have picked a worse example than the Stewart scenario to bolster your position.
You are defending a position taken by the most odious and despicable public person on the scene today, and doing it with a straight face. That shows me that you either can't think or you're a troll. Either way, you're not worth wasting time on.
One more point. The 911 commission, looking to inflict as much damage on the president as possible since it's been in session, has ignored this issue. Could it that they knew they'd be ridiculed mercilessly if they displayed the kind of ignorance you and Moore display about our air response capabilities given the timeline in question? Something for you to think about, bozo.
Why would DC be a target? They attacked NYC. What makes you think the next target would be in DC? Except hindsight, of course.
In the midst of all this, that little fact has been missed -- this is the first I have heard of it.
The word "hero" has been tossed around so much since 9/11, it has almost lost meaning. The pilots of those 2 planes are by any and every and certainly the proper definition of the word -- HEROs.
I am saddened by the fact this little piece of testimony isn't front page news.
Here's one thing he was doing?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30367
Just turned 42 on the 6th.
Why don't you post my entire reply to your idiotic statement?
"You are 100% right. Bush should have stood up right then and there and started shrieking "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"
The man knew there were cameras on him. The man knew it was a historical moment that called for every ounce of calm leadership he could muster. He knew that the forces and agencies of government were already turning, gathering information. He also knew that there were terrible decisions to be made. "
42?
What are you doing here? You should be having your prostate examined!
Although military jets were scrambled out of Boston about 8:46 a.m., it was already too late to prevent the attacks on the World Trade Center. About the same time, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the trade center's north tower.
Military officials acknowledged other problems in the nation's air defenses but said they had since been corrected.
McKinley testified that both ground communications with pilots and the radar system of the North American Aerospace Defense Command were designed to protect the country from external attack and thus worked only outside the country's borders.
As a result, military commanders were forced to rely on radar information from the FAA during the terror attacks. Moreover, they could not communicate directly with their pilots and had to go through the FAA.
In some of the more unusual testimony at the hearing, McKinley said pilots of two unarmed jets scrambled out of Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and intended to crash their planes into Flight 93, the Shanksville plane, if they could not get it to deviate from its flight path.
The planes were sent aloft at the request of the Secret Service, which feared that the hijacked plane was headed for the White House.
"It is my understanding that the planes were to crash into Flight 93," McKinley said.
http://newsmine.org/archive/9-11/questions/af-jets-standdown/planes-take-off-from-andrews.txt
I got the "poke and grope" in December for my physical to get back into the Marine Corps reserve.
I remember a thread some time back with just hysterical suggestions as to what the Pres really should have done, instead of remaining calm and letting arrangements get set up.
Like running around screaming "Oh, my God, we're all going to DIE!!!" and hiding under a desk...
...or picking up a bazooka and going right out to attack The Real Killers...
...or picking up a few children to use as human shields.
Liberals are so stupid; especially when they have NOTHING but hatred.
Dan
You are lucky! My doctor always refuses my request for an exam.
Then he refuses to look me in the eye the entire time left during my appointment.
He just quietly cleans my teeth and fills my cavities.
I think he should have hopped into a fighter plane, like the president did in Indepencence Day, and go find a wayward airliner and shoot it down. Yeah, that's it.
There wasn't anything that Bush could have done at that point, other than to make chain-of-command decisions if they were presented to him.
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