Okay, you were the President knowing only two planes had been crashed into the WTC, and you scrambled jets to protect the capital. How many jets did you scramble? Who controlled the airspace, the FAA or the Air Force? From your certainty despite the lack of information, I guess the Air Force would have been ordered to shoot down every aircraft that was not diverted from the D.C. airspace. How many airplanes would have to have been shot down to ensure you got the one highjacked and headed for the Pentagon? Or are you suggesting that your military would have had perfect coordination and communication with the FAA at the area airports and all of the airplanes in the area so that you could discretely identify the one threatening aircraft?
Would you also have scrambled fighters to defend all nuclear power plants, chemical production plants and other potential targets for terrorists? Why didn't you put the military on world-wide alert since you couldn't be certain the attacks were limited to U.S. targets? With 20/20 hindsight of course you wouldn't because you know that only the capital and New York were targeted. But why would you implement plans to defend only the capital and not the rest of your nation? How would that have playied in Peoria and in the media? If you had scrambled fighters to protect everywhere, and an innocent aircraft was shot down, how do you think the public would have reacted and the mainstream media would have reported it?
When would you have had discussions with your military commanders to get their assessments of the situation? What if they had told you your desired reaction would be ineffective? The bottom line is that the President did not have sufficient information to implement any actions that could have prevented the 9/11 tragedies. The attack on America came from a direction in which we were unprepared. Despite your heroic expectations, our military is not in constant standby mode where they can prevent attacks on a moment's notice.
"With 20/20 hindsight of course "
I've long-ago (in this thread) admitted that this is all 20:20 hindsight.
Rather than respond to your well-written-and-intelligent post point-by-point (and I totally see your points, btw), I suggest you do a google search on 9-11 + timeline for more information on other POV of the details of that day.
If 9-11 had occurred under Clintax, we'd all be asking these questions. I'm simply too non-partisan to not ask them myself.
Bingo. How many planes were in the air at the time? 50? 100? 200? How do you know where the next target is? Sears Tower? Savanah River Nuclear Plant? GOlden Gate Bridge?
Great questions you asked. Well done. These "do something" people are great...until asked "do what".