Free Republic

Defending his brother’s presidency, Jeb Bush has repeatedly declared that George W. Bush “kept us safe.” Focusing on the 9/11 attacks carries unique risks for Jeb Bush as he navigates the politics of national security and immigration -- and not simply because, as Donald Trump pointed out, the attacks occurred on President Bush’s watch. Many of the 9/11 hijackers were able to obtain Florida driver’s licenses or identification cards -- and train freely in the state -- while Jeb Bush was governor. -snip- While Jeb Bush has called Trump’s criticism “pathetic,” the immigration policies of Bush’s gubernatorial administration were under...

Donald Trump took a lot of heat for implying that George W. Bush was responsible for failing to prevent 9/11. (He didn't say it outright, saying merely that it happened on Bush's watch, but I think it was clearly implied.) He said that our porous immigration system was partially responsible for the attacks. And as it turns out, Jeb Bush agrees: ....a review Jeb Bush’s 2013 book Immigration Wars reveals that Jeb Bush himself agreed with Trump’s argument and admitted that our “leaky” immigration policy was responsible for the attack. Bush wrote: In addition to the Mexican drug cartels, the...

RUSH: Okay, Donald Trump. Okay, Trumpsters, I need to know what you're thinking here. Donald Trump said that he had to say it, that 9/11 happened while George W. Bush was president. He wished it didn't, but it did. And the implication was clear that 9/11, if you're gonna start blaming politicians for things that happen while they're in office, then how do you not blame George W. Bush for 9/11? And then Democrats immediately picked that up and applauded Mr. Trump and said, "Exactly right. "So if the Republicans are not going to acknowledge that George W. Bush was...

Reading his first hand account of this day is very chilling. Check it out. https://twitter.com/AriFleischer

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former President George W. Bush says his apparent lack of reaction to the first news of the September 11 2001 attacks was a conscious decision to project an aura of calm in a crisis. In a rare interview with the National Geographic Channel, Bush reflects on what was going through his mind at the most dramatic moment of his presidency when he was informed that a second passenger jet had hit New York's World Trade Center. Bush was visiting a Florida classroom and the incident, which was caught on TV film, and has often been used...

I have no where else to turn! Does anybody have a link for the video of G.W.B. addressing the firefighters in New York after 9/11? It is the video of him saying I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you. I tried google with a bunch of Anti-Bush results. Thank you in advance.

No wonder my mother was a little breathless on the telephone. "Listen to this," she said, preparing me for a snippet from a tome by the popular, late and liberal historian William Manchester. It describes Franklin D. Roosevelt's initial reaction to news of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, that devastated the American fleet, killing 2,403 soldiers, sailors and civilians. After calling the secretary of state, Manchester writes, "the President of the United States did nothing for 18 minutes." Eighteen minutes. Why, that's 11, maybe 12 minutes more than George W. Bush paused during a visit...

Sarasota principal defends Bush from "Fahrenheit 9/11" portrayal By Associated Press June 24, 2004 SARASOTA — Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11" criticizes President Bush for listening to Sarasota second-graders read a story for nearly seven minutes after learning the nation was under attack on Sept. 11, 2001. But Gwendolyn Tose'-Rigell, the principal at Emma E. Booker Elementary School, says Bush handled himself properly. "I don't think anyone could have handled it better," Tose'-Rigell told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in a story published Wednesday. "What would it have served if he had jumped out of his chair and ran out of the...

LOS ANGELES -- President Bush yesterday defended his decision to wait five minutes before leaving a Florida classroom upon learning of the September 11 terrorist attacks, a move that was criticized last week by Sen. John Kerry.     "I think it's easy to second-guess," Mr. Bush said on CNN's "Larry King Live." "What's important is how I reacted when I realized America was under attack.     "It didn't take me long to figure out we were at war," he added. "It didn't take me long to develop a plan that we would go after al Qaeda. We went into action very quickly."...

Right now Bill Maher (Sp?) is saying that President Bush sat for 7 minutes after being informed of 9/11 and that is proof positive that he is not a good President (deal breaker were his words).Hannity agreed - then said but I judge him on the whole of his performance since that moment. If Hannitty had any brains he would probably have done some research and known that there are very sophisticated plans in place for the President's movements in the event of an attack against America. Not having lose lips, I think it is safe to say that the...

John Kerry has waded into an issue raised by Michael Moore in his film "Fahrenheit 9/11," namely, President Bush's sitting for seven minutes in a Florida classroom after being told "the country is under attack." Republicans are waxing indignant, of course. But the criticism is richly deserved. The fact that Bush wasted 27 minutes that day - not only the seven minutes reading to kids but 20 more at a photo op afterward - was, in my view, the most outrageous thing a President has done since Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court. Watergate was outrageous but it...

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...

Clash And Kerry By John F. Harris Saturday, August 7, 2004; Page A10 Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and wife Teresa Heinz Kerry are not quite on the same script when it comes to whether President Bush responded appropriately in the stunned first moments when he learned on Sept. 11, 2001, that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. On Thursday, Kerry told a convention of minority journalists that he would have reacted more decisively to the news than Bush, who continued reading with a group of Florida schoolchildren for seven minutes after an aide whispered the news...

ATLANTA - Thursday Senator John Kerry criticized President Bush for his immediate reaction to the 9/11 attacks on America soon after Michael Moore's use of the footage in Fahrenheit 911. Addressing minority journalists in DC, Mr. Kerry said he would have moved into action much faster than the President on that morning.Kerry said, "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 something that he needed to attend to -- and I...

Taking his cue from conspiracy filmmaker Michael Moore, John Kerry attacked President Bush this week for not reacting quickly enough when he got word of the 9/11 attacks during a visit to Sarasota, Florida's Emma E. Booker elementary school. Booker school principal Gwendolyn Tose-Rigell says, however, that Bush did just the right thing by staying put and continuing to read to her children. And she says the president's performance that day made her want to vote for him, even though she's a Democrat. "I don't think anyone could have handled it better," Tose-Rigell recently told the Sarasota Herald Tribune. "What...

Scott Pelley: You must be frustrated, maybe angry. After a year, we still don’t have Osama Bin Laden? President Bush: How do you know that? I don’t know whether Osama bin Laden is dead or alive. I don’t know that. He’s not leading a lot of parades. And he’s not nearly the hero that a lot of people thought he was. This is much bigger than one person anyway. This is — we’re slowly but surely dismantling and disrupting the al Qaeda network that, that hates America. And we will stay on task until we complete the task. I always...

Bush On 9/11: Moment To Moment Sept. 11, 2002 (CBS) No president since Abraham Lincoln has seen such horrific loss of life in a war on American soil. No president since James Madison, nearly 200 years ago, has seen the nation’s capital city successfully attacked. But, one year ago, President George W. Bush was thrown into the first great crisis of the 21st century. This is the president’s story of September 11th and the week America went to war. 60 Minutes II spent two hours with Mr. Bush, one, on Air Force One and another in the Oval Office last...

Part II: The Days After WASINGTON, Sept. 11, 2002 (CBS) When Sept. 12 dawned, President Bush was demanding a war plan. No one in the White House or the Pentagon could be sure of what the president would do. In office for just eight months, he’d never been tested as commander-in-chief. “I never asked them what they thought,” President Bush said of the Pentagon brass, “because I didn’t really – because I knew what I was gonna do. I knew exactly what had to be done, Scott. And that was to set a strategy to seek justice. Find out who...

On CBS...President Bush on the 2nd Anniversay of 9-11.60 Minutes 2 is presenting a special episode.

Both Saviour and Victim The film Black Hawk Down is helping to create a new myth of American nationhood, which threatens everyone on earth By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 29th January 2002 The more powerful a nation becomes, the more it asserts its victimhood. In contemporary British eyes, the greatest atrocities of the 18th and 19th centuries were those perpetrated on compatriots in the Black Hole of Calcutta or during the Indian mutiny and the siege of Khartoum. The extreme manifestations of the white man's burden, these events came to symbolise the barbarism and ingratitude of the savage...