Posted on 08/11/2004 1:28:05 PM PDT by wagglebee
It was a beautiful Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C. The sky was blue, the air was crisp, and millions of Americans were making their way to their jobs just as they did on any other day.
But this was no ordinary day. In fact, it was a day that would change not only my life but also the course of American history.
On this day, September 11, 2001, I rode with the top down in my friend's convertible along the highway toward the Pentagon. As I listened in disbelief to the radio reports of terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, I was snapped back into reality by the roar of jet engines only a couple hundred feet above my head. Flight 77 then crashed in front of my eyes in a fiery explosion into the Pentagon.
I sat stunned in the car as we pulled to the side of the freeway. I looked around only to see more stunned looks – some eyes wide with shock, others streaming with tears.
Earlier, when President Bush received word of the second World Trade Center attack, he sat for seven minutes taking in what had just happened and fulfilling his obligation to the Florida students to whom he was reading. I sat in shock, and the president calmly sat and contemplated his next move. We now know, however, that had John Kerry been president, he would have acted – and he would have done so immediately.
Speaking at the Unity Conference, a quadrennial gathering of the four largest minority journalism associations, Sen. Kerry told the audience, "First of all, had I been reading to children, and had my top aide whispered in my ear, 'America is under attack,' I would have told those kids very politely and nicely that the president of the United States had business that he needed to attend to, and I would have attended to it."
Although plenty has been said regarding President Bush and his efforts in the war on terror, until Kerry's comment no political figure, neither Republican nor Democrat, has criticized President Bush's actions on that terrible day. Now, with either the benefit of divine hindsight or a complete lack of understanding of the fog of the day, Kerry claims he could have done things better. He would have "attended to business."
Just what would Kerry have done upon hearing the news? How could things have run more smoothly under President Kerry from the time he was whispered the information until the time he left the classroom? In those seven minutes could we have saved an additional life? Could we have gotten a jump start on attacking al-Qaida?
In Kerry's zeal for the White House, he has shown in one sentence that playing politics with the memory of 9/11 is not beyond his limits of decency. It is impossible to say what we would have or could have done during 9/11. It is only possible to say what each one of us did do as the events unfolded on that fateful day.
I sat stunned until the realization hit us that we needed to call loved ones to let them know what was happening. President Bush was charting a course of action while remaining calm in a classroom of children. Despite what Kerry says he would have done on 9/11, upon hearing the news of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center, Kerry told CNN's Larry King that he and fellow senators "watched the second plane come in to the building."
"And we shortly thereafter sat down at the table and then we just realized nobody could think," Kerry continued to King.
Kerry said he was shaken out of his non-thinking state by seeing the "cloud of explosion at the Pentagon." Between the time of the second World Trade Center attack and the attack on the Pentagon, 40 minutes elapsed. That's 40 minutes of the Democrats' presidential nominee being unable to think.
Yet, despite the fact that as senator Kerry was unable to think for 40 minutes, the American public is supposed to believe that President Bush was wrong to continue reading for seven minutes and that as president, Kerry would have acted immediately.
This notion would be ridiculous if it weren't so tragic. No one – except Kerry, it seems – can honestly say how they would have acted had they been in a different role on September 11, 2001.
If you were a firefighter with a wife and children at home and you were standing at the doors of one of the World Trade Center towers, would you have rushed in?
If the situation arose, and as a fighter pilot you were ordered to kill innocent American civilians on a passenger airliner, could you have done it?
These are unknown questions and will always remain unknown. Tragedies such as 9/11 make heroes out of normal people and turn novice officeholders into leaders. Kerry, to his shame, claims a course of action that can never be known.
This campaign for president of the United States will surely have its share of attack ads, accusations and counter-accusations. As it unfolds, I can only hope that Sen. Kerry will remember 9/11 for what it was – a terrible day for America, a day that ended the lives of some and changed the lives of all.
In the meantime, if given the choice between a man who sat calmly for seven minutes in order to process unspeakable terrorist attacks and a man who sat for 40 minutes unable to think, I'll take the former any day of the week.
In the aftermath of Vietnam, America learned that John Kerry was a traitor, we now know he is a coward as well. An event such as 9/11 would, if Kerry was POTUS, spell the end of American life as we know it -- because Kerry would do nothing.
A remarkably short period of time.
Was Kerry really in Washington on 9/11?
Kerry claims the right to second-guess our president---but he sure doesn't like his fellow swift boat vets questioning anything he did.
Kerry Response - Did I say 40 mins. I meant it took me 40 mins to lead everyone safely from the Capital. I mean, 40 Mins until 10:00 a.m. was the time. I know I didn't say I couldn't think for 40 mins. I was in Cambodia on Christmas 1968 uh huh... Yes I was ... I don't care what you think, It was a super secret mission and I was there for 40 mins in a firefight and I got a purple heart and all see.... no I'm not crazy... not crazy...not me...
to be continued.....
bump for later
Who knows? No one has contradicted his recollection of being at the Capitol, and being stunned for 40 minutes. Well, except for Kerry.
If Bush had jumped up and tried to leave that classroom immediately upon hearing about the second plane, the Secret Service would have tackled him and sat on him for however long it would take them to be certain that he was safe. Only then would he have been allowed to leave that room.
This entire "seven minute" kerfuffle is nothing more than idiotic Michael Moore/looney left propaganda that rests entirely on false assumptions and ignorance of process. That it has elevated itself into discussions about who makes a better leader shows how far away from rational thought are our politics.
Once again...Flipper tries to build himself up. John Kerry? or Walter Mitty?
A remarkably short period of time.
And he got it together without frightening the kids...
As I recall that is not strictly true as some Democrats suggested the President should have immediatly returned to Washington and intimated cowardice was the reason he did not. Most Democrats muted their critical barrage but not all.
According to all accounts he was in a meeting, they got word of the attacks and then he stayed in a daze for 40 minutes before the Capitol was evacuated.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1186227/posts
president kerry would to this day still be trying to decide what to do and begging france to do it.
Something here is just not quite right. Could he be strrrrretching the truth again???? NAH1
Most people will never understand that in situations like this, by law, the Secret Service is in control of determining the president's movements, not the president. The safest place for him was the classroom, nobody knew he was there except a select few.
Cal Thomas' column today in the Washington Times (Why Truth Matters) discusses Kerry's 40 minute "daze", at:
http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20040810-100238-4903r.htm
Actually, it was more like 34-35 minutes plus the time between the hit on the Pentagon and the order to evacuate.
I heard the Democratic Caucus was having a meeting at the Capitol Bldg. and then they all RAN to the Bldg. Bunker/Safe Room immediately after hearing about the second airplane.
Kerry's hindsight is 80/80.
In other words, he is legally blind.
Personally, I think that Bush was just being mindful of the sensitities of the children. To jump up and start wringing your hands would have been very frightful. Bush comported himself magnificently.
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