Does Bush really want to make his reaction to 9/11 the centerpiece of his reelection campaign? His reaction, really closely examined?

Apparently, what we've been told about how Bush and other administration officials conducted themselves on 9/11 is fiction, according to this Wall Street Journal piece. And the truth is not very flattering to Bush at all:

"Just after 9 a.m. [on September 11th], Mr. Bush took a seat in front of students, most of them from a poor neighborhood. He listened as teacher Sandra K. Daniels pointed to an easel, and the second-graders read aloud lists of words.

"Then, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card strode into the classroom, leaned down and whispered in the president's ear, "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack," Mr. Card has recounted.

"Both Republican and Democratic commissioners have said they are focusing closely on what happened next -- and whether mere minutes could have affected the outcome on Sept. 11. The panel's investigators are looking at questions such as the timeliness of presidential orders about intercepting the jet that at 9:37 a.m. plowed into the Pentagon.

"In a CNBC television interview almost a year later, Mr. Card said that after he alerted Mr. Bush, 'I pulled away from the president, and not that many seconds later, the president excused himself from the classroom, and we gathered in the holding room and talked about the situation.'

"But uncut videotape of the classroom visit obtained from the local cable-TV station director who shot it, and interviews with the teacher and principal, show that Mr. Bush remained in the classroom not for mere seconds, but for at least seven additional minutes. He followed along for five minutes as children read aloud a story about a pet goat. Then he stayed for at least another two minutes, asking the children questions and explaining to Ms. Rigell that he would have to leave more quickly than planned.

"Mr. Bartlett confirmed in an interview that the president stayed in the classroom for at least seven minutes. The spokesman said that as the president's staff was trying to learn more about the plane crashes, there was no need to talk to Mr. Bush or pull him away. The president didn't leave immediately after receiving the news of the second crash from Mr. Card because Mr. Bush's 'instinct was not to frighten the children by rushing out of the room,' the spokesman added. Mr. Bush's motorcade left the school at approximately 9:35 a.m., 32 minutes after he entered the classroom, according to a White House timeline and analysis of the uncut videotape.

President Aloft

"The president learned the Pentagon also had been hit as his motorcade sped just over three miles to Sarasota/Bradenton International Airport, where Air Force One was waiting. At 9:56 a.m., the presidential 747 was airborne. Determined to avoid any dangers at lower altitudes, Air Force Col. Mark Tillman, the pilot, climbed so steeply that officials aboard said in interviews that the jet seemed to go almost vertical. It quickly reached the relatively safe altitude of 40,000 feet.

"In the Dec. 4, 2001, town-hall meeting, the President said he didn't begin to make major decisions about the emergency until he was back aboard his plane. 'I got on the phone from Air Force One, asking to find out the facts,' he said."

Cheney doesn't come off so well either. The mind games he plays on the American public he also seems to play on W.

"As Air Force One left Sarasota, the president intended to return directly to Washington, Mr. Bartlett said. Mr. Bush initially had ignored advice from Vice President Dick Cheney, calling while en route to a White House basement command center, that Washington appeared to be under attack and the president for his own safety should remain away, according to an official in the vice president's office. Once airborne, Mr. Bush spoke again on a secure phone with Mr. Cheney, who relayed a new message that changed the president's mind, White House officials later said. The vice president urged Mr. Bush to postpone his return because, Mr. Cheney said, the government had received a specific threat that Air Force One itself had been targeted by terrorists. Mr. Cheney emphasized that the threat included a reference to what he called the secret code word for the presidential jet, 'Angel,' Mr. Bartlett said in an interview...

"Although in the days after Sept. 11, Mr. Cheney and other administration officials recounted that a threat had been received against Air Force One, Mr. Bartlett said in a recent interview that there hadn't been any actual threat. Word of a threat had resulted from confusion in the White House bunker, as multiple conversations went on simultaneously, he said. Many of these exchanges, he added, related to rumors that turned out to be false, such as reports of attacks on the president's ranch in Texas and the State Department. As for the Air Force One code name, Mr. Bartlett said, 'Somebody was using the word 'angel,' ' and 'that got interpreted as a threat based on the word 'angel.'' (Former Secret Service officials said the code wasn't an official secret, but a radio shorthand designation that had been made public well before 2001.)

"The vice president's office gave an account differing from Mr. Bartlett's, saying it still couldn't rule out that a threat to Air Force One actually had been made.

"Days after the attacks, Mr. Cheney had said word of the threat had been passed to him by Secret Service agents. But in interviews, two former senior Secret Service agents on duty that day denied that their agency played any role in receiving or passing on a threat to the presidential jet.

"An official in Mr. Cheney's office said in an interview that Mr. Cheney had been mistaken in saying the threat came to him via the Secret Service. The official said that instead, Mr. Cheney had received word of the threat from 'a uniformed military person' manning the underground bunker. The official said the vice president and his staff don't know who the individual was. And the official said that he couldn't say definitively whether or not a threat had been made..."

Sort of like the WMD in Iraq, and the Al Qaeda-Saddam connection.

Read the whole thing here.

Posted by Laura at March 22, 2004 01:47 PM