Reply With Quote
What would it have served to have the Commander in Chief jump out of his chair and do his job after finding out our country is under attack? Really?
I wonder what her thoughts of how Bush handled Katrina were.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...#ixzz1LKFS8GEw
There has rarely been a starker juxtaposition of evil and innocence than the moment President George W. Bush received the news about 9/11 while reading The Pet Goat with second-graders in Sarasota, Florida.
Seven-year-olds can't understand what Islamic terrorism is all about. But they know when an adult's face is telling them something is very wrong — and none of the students sitting in Sandra Kay Daniels' class at Emma E. Booker Elementary School that morning can forget the sudden, devastated change in Bush's expression when White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card whispered the terrible news of the Al Qaeda attack. Lazaro Dubrocq's heart started racing because he assumed they were all in big trouble — with no less than the Commander-in-Chief — but he wasn't quite sure why. "In a heartbeat he leaned back and he looked flabbergasted, shocked, horrified," recalls Dubrocq, now 17. "I was baffled. I mean, did we read something wrong? Was he mad or disappointed in us?"
All sorts of similar kid fears started running through Mariah Williams' head. "I don't remember the story we were reading — was it about pigs?" says Williams, 16. "But I'll always remember watching his face turn red. He got really serious all of a sudden. But I was clueless. I was just seven. I'm just glad he didn't get up and leave because then I would have been more scared and confused." Chantal Guerrero, 16, agrees: even today she's grateful that Bush regained his composure and stayed with the students until The Pet Goat was finished. "I think the President was trying to keep us from finding out," says Guerrero, "so we all wouldn't freak out."
Even if they didn't freak out, it's apparent that sharing the terrifying Tuesday of 9/11 with Bush has affected those second-graders in the decade since — and, they say, made the news of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's killing by U.S. commandos on Sunday all the more meaningful. Dubrocq, now a junior at Riverview High School in Sarasota, doubts he'd be a student in the rigorous IB, or international baccalaureate program, if he hadn't been with the President as one of history's most infamous global events unfolded. "Because of that," he says, "I came to realize as I grew up that the world is a much bigger place, and that there are differing opinions about us out there, not all of them good."
Guerrero, today a junior at the Sarasota Military Academy, believes the experience "has since given us all a better understanding of the situation, sort of made us take it all more seriously. At that age I couldn't understand how anyone could take innocent lives that way. And I still of course can't. But today I can problem-solve it all a lot better, maybe better than other kids because I was kind of part of it." Williams, also a junior at the military academy, says those 9/11 moments spent with Bush conferred on the kids a sort of historical authority as they grew up in Sarasota. "Today, when we talk about 9/11 in class and you hear kids make mistakes about what happened with the President that day, I can tell them they're wrong. Because I was there."
One thing they'd like to tell Bush's critics — like liberal filmmaker Michael Moore, whose 2004 do entary Fahrenheit 911 disparaged Bush for lingering almost 10 minutes with the Booker students after getting word that two planes had crashed into New York's World Trade Center — is that they think the President did the right thing. "I think he was trying to keep everybody calm, starting with us," says Guerrero. Dubrocq agrees: "I think he was trying to protect us." Booker Principal Gwendolyn Tose'-Rigell, who died in 2007, later insisted, "I don't think anyone could have handled it better. What would it have served if [Bush] had jumped out of his chair and ran out of the room?"
When the children's story was done, Bush left for the school's library, where he discussed the New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania nightmare with aides, reporters and another group of students waiting for him. Back in the classroom, Daniels brought in a television and turned on the first bewildering images of the Twin Towers in flames and smoke. At that point the kids started connecting the dots. "It was pretty scary," says Williams, "and I remember thinking, So that's why the President looked so mad."
Dubrocq got mad himself. "But I had to wait a few years before I could digest what had really happened and why they attacked us," he says. "I of course grew up to have nothing but contempt for Osama bin Laden." Yet he adds the episode "motivated me to get a better handle on the world and to want to help improve the world." It also made Dubrocq, who wants to study international business, more aware of his own multinational roots — he's French and Cuban on his father's side and Spanish and Mexican on his mother's. Not surprisingly, he also wants to learn other languages, like Chinese and, in an echo of his 9/11 memories, perhaps even Arabic.
Williams says she also hated Bin Laden more as she grew up and gained a better appreciation of how fanatics had changed her world on 9/11. "All that just because he wanted to control everybody in the world, control how we think and what we do," she says. Williams doesn't plan to pursue a military career — she wants to be a veterinarian — but the military academy student was impressed by the Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan that killed Bin Laden: "I was shocked — I thought after 10 years they'd never find him. But what the SEALs did, it, like, gives me even more respect for that kind of training."
Guerrero, in fact, may as well be part of that training. She also plans a civilian life — she hopes to study art and musical theater — but she's a Junior ROTC member and part of her school's state champion Raiders team, which competes against other academies in contests like rope bridge races, map navigation and marksmanship. In other words, the same sort of skills the SEAL commandos have to master. She admits to feeling an added rush when she woke up to Monday morning's news: the SEALs operation, she says, "was very, very cool."
More than cool, Guerrero says, it was also "so reassuring, after a whole decade of being scared about these things." Most of all, it "brought back a flood of memories" of their tragic morning with a President — memories that prove kids can carry a lot heavier stuff in those plastic backpacks than adults often realize
What would it have served to have the Commander in Chief jump out of his chair and do his job after finding out our country is under attack? Really?
I wonder what her thoughts of how Bush handled Katrina were.
"I think he was trying to keep everybody calm, starting with us," says Guerrero. Dubrocq agrees: "I think he was trying to protect us."
Everything else about simpleton, ignorant dubya says he was nothing but a stupid deer caught in the headlights of a disaster he allowed to happen.
What's the point of this thread?
he had that look of "i should have listened"
lol darrin starting a thread about "story time".
Please elaborate. What steps should the CIC have taken at that moment?
Be specific.
/ChumpDumper.
Stand up and say "excuse me" and leave the room
the monkey didn't even have the brainpower to accomplish that
I don't know what presidential protocol is if he finds out the country is under attack, but my opinion is that he should have gotten up, gotten to a phone, found out exactly what the was going on, get on a plane and get to work IMMEDIATELY at protecting the people that elected him President.
Ok. So you don't know whether or not he was abrogating his duties nor have any cogent clue as to what said duties are, but just wanted to on Bush again. I get it.
It's an easy game to play and everybody wins!
'cept logic.
Stupid thread generates stupid posts. No suprise here.
gfy DarrinS.
Keeping elementary school kids calm <<<<<<<<< Doing your duties as CIC.
Sure, this immediate response probably wouldn't have done anything in that situation, but the fact that our country was under attack and he just sat there is amazing. Quite frankly the fact that the SS LET him sit there is rather amazing too.
What indefensible position will Darrin take up in his next thread?
when DarrinS highlights the part where Booker Principal Gwendolyn Tose'-Rigell says she doesn't think anyone could have handled it any better, I took exception to the statement because I think he could have handled it better myself.
No, I don't know if he really abrogated his duties, but just as I would expect a fireman to jump up and run if hears that a 4 alarm fire has broken out, so would I also expect the President, Bush or otherwise, to jump and run if he hears the words "America is under attack."
I'll see if I can find what protocal should be for a president in this situation so that you don't on my response again.
There is no protocol. If our country is attacked, you react. You certainly don't sit there.
There may not be a book with a long set of directions on what the president does depending on the situation or the news he gets, but this much should be common sense. When the nation is under attack, you do not wait to react.
Mr President, there are ICBMs headed our way!
10 minutes later a mushroom cloud goes up over his corpse.
lol...calm down. I'll take off the ChumpDumper mask now.
My point is:
At that point we knew jack . A plane flew into a building. It wasn't apparent that it was an attack until sometime later. Did he indeed hear the words "America is under attack?" I dunno. If he did, then he the bed. If he didn't then...what?
Answer: We get a stupid thread from DarrinS again.If he didn't then...what?
I think you're missing the important fact that we do know he was told that we were under attack, Teysha. He was told of the first plane going in and they didn't know what was going on, but when the second plane went in he was told "america is under attack". 10 minutes later, it processed.
lol...then I rescind my recent, stinging defense. He the bed.
Andrew Card in an interview a couple of years ago.I opened the door to the classroom and the press pool was gathered at the back of the classroom. I walked up to the president and leaned over and whispered into his right ear: “A second plane” — I was very very succinct, very purposeful with my diction — “A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack.” And I stood back from the president so that he couldn’t ask me a question and then I inched my way back to the door. I was all business. I was all business.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32782623...t_years_later/
Which is waaaay better than what I would've done....start screaming like a 9 year old girl.
From the Andrew Card Interview: "There was a lot of criticism of the president not being immediately available on the day of the attacks. What do you have to say about that?
There should be no criticism for the way the president responded to the attacks on September 11. I thought he was masterful and disciplined and inclusive and decisive. If people are criticizing him, they are criticizing from afar, and not from the reality of the moment."
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
