So, with this new AP story today, detailing again what happened the morning of September 11, I'm still confused as to what the heck Bush was thinking.
When it became clear that the nation was under attack, Bush decided to continue his remarks to a classroom of second graders. "The president told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis." Fifty minutes later, he was on Air Force One as it climbed into the sky with no certain destination. The objective was to get into the air as fast as possible and decide where to go, the commission said.It is "clear that the nation was under attack," yet Bush continues to read a book to a class of second graders for a good long while. Finally, 50 minutes later he takes off in Air Force One. We're told that the objective was to get into the air as fast as possible - this strikes me as a bit of an excuse for why Bush didn't return to Washington - yet the president chose to sit on the ground for 50 minutes rather than get in the air when he knew the nation was under attack. So, the "I had to be in the air rather than on the ground" excuse is a bit faulty here.
I bring this up because I was ticked at Bush on September 11, and still am. He disappeared for the entire day, and we didn't even know if he was alive until around 12:30PM (I remember Peter Jennings asking where the hell the president was). Then he goes into a secure bunker while the rest of us sit it out and look out our Washington, DC picture windows hoping the world doesn't end around us. I'd like to think that Ronald Reagan would have likely gone back to the White House, to hell with the Secret Service - or at least Ronnie would have done an address to the nation, at least a quick one, from Air Force One, to let us know we were in secure hands. Bush, instead, chose to not let the country see an excited reaction, and that, he surely accomplished.
