Yes, he had a very brief time to collect both his emotions and his thoughts.
Since the American Revolution, there have been exactly TWO presidents other than George W. Bush who had to face a nation-threatening attack on U.S. soil from a foreign enemy: James Madison when the British attacked in the War of 1812, and FDR when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. To the best of my knowledge, history does not record precisely what each man did the moment they were first told of the attack. But I think it's safe to say that neither man dashed about hither and yon just to satisfy their critics.
More to the point, because the experience has been so rare in our history, no president can say precisely what he would do at such a moment. It seems to me more than entirely reasonable for a president to take a brief time to collect his thoughts, collect his emotions, give his staff a bit of time to get an initial handle on things, and then react publicly.
Before a gathering of journalists in Washington, DC, today, John Kerry criticized President Bush for his actions on 9-11-01, following the attack on the World Trade Center. Kerry accused Bush of not acting swiftly, but instead, choosing to continue to read to children in a Florida classroom.
First, it’s telling that Kerry is using Michael Moore’s propaganda as a playbook in his campaign. This has the whiff of desperation about it.
Secondly, where exactly was John Kerry that morning when America was under attack, and what was he doing?
In an interview on with Larry King on CNN, July 8, 2004 (http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/08/lkl.00.html), Sen. Kerry was asked where he was the morning of September 11, and this is part of his response:
Kerry: “…And as I came in [to a meeting in Sen. Daschle’s office], Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid were standing there, and we 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, and then boom, right behind us, we saw the cloud of explosion at the Pentagon…” (emphasis added).
It should be noted that the second plane hit the World Trade Center at 9:03 a.m., and the plane hit the Pentagon at 9:43 a.m. By Kerry’s own words, he, and others, sat there for forty minutes, realizing “nobody could think.”
In other words, Sen. Kerry, who criticized President Bush for not rushing out of the Florida classroom for seven minutes, sat paralyzed with his colleagues for a full forty minutes. He is hardly in a position to criticize President Bush for “inaction.”
More to the point, because the experience has been so rare in our history, no president can say precisely what he would do at such a moment. It seems to me more than entirely reasonable for a president to take a brief time to collect his thoughts, collect his emotions, give his staff a bit of time to get an initial handle on things, and then react publicly.
Excellent points. Somewhere, there is a report on a physiological study on how pilots react to (a) a potential midair with oncoming, conflicting traffic, and (b) continued flight from good weather into IFR conditions. The timelines are stunning - including the time taken to acknowledge that there IS a problem, to determine what to do, and to physically do it. The length of time it take to do all this is much, much longer than anyone would think ... and that's under optimal conditions with current training. Someone who's not accustomed to handling extreme stress situations will experience more of a lag, or may even do nothing until it's too late.
Kerry is a fraud.