9/11/01: Where Was George? (Alterman 'Bush-hating' alert)

The Nation ^ | 09/18/03 | Eric Alterman

[Mo1]

but Alterman and the Bush-Haters aren't satisfied with the answers and are thus attempting revisionist history.

BINGO!!

[Paul Atreides]

Plus, the left will never forgive the impeachment of Bubba. That is why I believe that the 2000 fiasco was nothing less than an orchestration to taint a Bush win.

[Mo1]

This is false. Nobody saw the jetliner crash into the first tower on television until a videotape surfaced a day later.
Is this true?

Yes it is .. I believe it is that frence film producer that had the video of the plane flying into the building and that didn't appear until after 9/11

For CNN or any other news station to have gotten this on TV as it happened .. they would have had to have known the plane was hijack and was going to slam into the WTC

[Timesink]

Is this true?

I don't know about the timing of the tape's release, but it is true that the first plane crash was not shown live on TV.

However, it is beyond any doubt that Bush was simply making an inadvertent error in his words, the same kind that any of us would be "caught in" several times if we had a camera trained on us for several hours' worth of interviews. Bush obviously meant to say something along the lines of, "I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw where the airplane hit the tower..." Instead he said, "I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower..." BFD. Alterman's just trying to gin up a conspiracy theory because of his pathological Bush Hatred.

Let the bastard seethe. Two words, Eric: November 2004. If you think you felt pain after Florida 2000, Alter Boy ... if you saw The End of the World in the 2002 elections, just you wait. You ain't seen NOTHIN' yet.

[massadvj]

My distain for them is only out done by FREEPERS WHO POST THIS LIBERAL DRIVEL

I, for one, appreciate this post. I like to read what the enemy is writing, as opposed to sticking my head in the sand and exposing myself only to conservative thought.

I think a number of liberals suspect that GWB knew of the attack before it happened, maybe even signed off on it. According to their convoluted thinking, Bush needed a war, and his friends the Saudis delivered it for him. I know it sounds ridiculous, but liberals think that way. I know. I was one once.

Therefore, they'd like more investigation into how GWB spent that day. For example, why go up in Air Force One if it was a target? Did GWB know that AFO wasn't going to be attacked because he was in on the conspiracy? Hmmmmmm?

These folks live in the Twilight Zone. It's no wonder they believed in Clinton.

[Timesink]

Look- the Secret Service is the only federal agency in the Executive Branch that can give the President an order. They believed his life may have been in danger, and the safest place for him was on Air Force One.

While it's quite rare for a President to go against the recommendations of the Secret Service (and Bush obviously did not on 9/11), I don't think a President is legally bound to follow their orders.

[Humidston]

>>I'm waiting for the day the libs let it go.<<

Don't hold your breath.

I expect we'll soon see conspiracy books expounding on various crackpot theories.

[BlueAngel]

Thank you Pokey for all your posts. Your contributions to FR are very much appreciated.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

I agree with you.

And, I do know that memory changes with time. Until I read that sentence, I assumed that we all saw the footage of the plane on the day it happened, and then realized my error. But, it doesn't stop the fact that we all saw the buildings fall that day... (or the great majority of us did).

As for the President's actions and movements that day, I find nothing remotely amiss or reactionary. And I do believe he performed exceedingly well, under extreme pressure.

Last point, which cannot be said often enough... THANK GOD GWBUSH WAS PRESIDENT ON SEPTEMBER 11th, 2001!

[Theyknow]

Yes it's true but who cares. The President made a mistake, he was in the room with CNN showing the building burning. He connected that shot with his thoughts when he heard about the plane strike even though they didn't happen at the same time. It is meaningless.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

It is meaningless.

I agree.

[Lunatic Fringe]

Hehe- he may not be LEGALLY bound, but I don't believe any President can really do anything when 8 Servicemen grab you and put you on a plane.

[lodwick]

It is true that there was no live footage of the first plane.

[meenie]

There are a lot of unanswered questions that should be answered. How do you improve conditions to prevent second attacks without knowing the mistakes made in the first attack? Airliners hijacked for half an hour and no fighters airborne to keep airliners away from potential targets. If this is normal, what is going to happen when Osama loads up the big one and comes in from the Caribbean or Canada? We need to know what security lapses were made. This is not a witch hunt for a culprit but an attempt to improve our security. I think we need a full investigation.

[Bob J]

I don't have the answers to these questions. But why is no one asking them?

Because they're dumb.

[Timesink]

I agree that in the end it is a matter of "So what?" and a long yawn. But what exactly IS the truth of the matter and why is it so hard to get a simple story straight?

Easy: Because different people will always interpret the same event differently in their own minds, remember it differently, and tell their stories differently. Any event - ANY - that is "analyzed" into the ground like 9/11 has been will always come out as a big mess, simply because there are so many people talking to so many other people, most of whom were only privy to tiny pieces of the overall story in the first place ... so discrepancies are GUARANTEED.

You could pick any major league baseball game from yesterday at random, start "digging for the truth" as to why team A won and team B lost, and end up with a story that has so many twists and turns that it would end up looking like the JFK assassination. Take every player into a room by himself and ask the same questions of each of them. You'll probably get 20 different explanations as to what happened, and well over half of them probably wouldn't mesh 100% with what the TV cameras caught on tape live as it happened.

Human brains are imperfect. That's really all the explanation you need as to why we'll never get a perfectly straight story.

[Theyknow]

Yes, thank God Bush was President that day. The horrible thought of Gore attempting to lead through that difficult historic time makes me shutter.

I’m not sure what an investigation would serve except to draw more Rats out from the dark. That said, it would be useful for the President to sit down with a friendly, respectful journalist and talk in detail about these questions for the sake of history.

[Springman]

Bump for later, thanks for the post.

[Timesink]

Hehe- he may not be LEGALLY bound, but I don't believe any President can really do anything when 8 Servicemen grab you and put you on a plane.

I won't argue with that!

[Bob J]

Bush didn't say he saw the first jetliner crash, he said he saw a jetliner crash. His later statement about putting emerg mgmt measures in place after the first crash would still be consistent if he did that today.