Shock: “Time” Has Positive Article…
…about Bush
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.
…”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.”
Read the whole thing. Quite a compassionate and daringly revisionist, and long overdue, take on a key moment in his Presidency.
Media, Morality, People | Mr. Bingley | 
May 4, 2011 6:44 am
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I remember arguing with people after 9/11 who claimed Bush was “passive” or “confused” because he stayed in the classroom. My response was “You really wanted him to tell a classroom of 7 year olds that America had been attacked and people were dying?”
I thought then – and still think – he did the best response in the situation he was in.
And just think: it only took Time 10 years to get the story out. My distain for the MSM is stuck on 11.
Agreed, ricki. With the limited amount of info he was given, he was right not to scare the kids in that class.
I always said history would be kind to GWB, well after his precidency. I just didn’t think Time magazine would be.
He did just the right thing. The MSM couldn’t bring themselves to say that then but 10 years? Better late than never I guess.
Better late than never, true, but why so long?
A guilty conscience? Has Obama’s feckless ways made even the boneheads at Time sick of him?
Or have elements of the Lame Stream Media finally realized that the unwashed masses ain’t buying their propaganda?
Any way you look at it, it still has me shaking my head. It took them ten years to admit it?
A very good, if not overdue article. Along the lines of how different things can be viewed once political juices intermingle, here’s a starking comparison from Fancy Pants, Nancy Pelosi on the capture of bin Laden. One under Bush, the second, Obama.
From a Pelosi press conference – September 7, 2006:
Even if Osama bin Laden is caught tomorrow, it is five years too late. He has done more damage the longer he has been out there. But, in fact, the damage that he has done . . . is done. And even to capture him now I don’t think makes us any safer.
And here’s Nancy Pelosi yesterday:
The death of Osama bin Laden marks the most significant development in our fight against al-Qaida. . . . I salute President Obama, his national security team, Director Panetta, our men and women in the intelligence community and military, and other nations who supported this effort for their leadership in achieving this major accomplishment. . . . [T]he death of Osama bin Laden is historic. . .
One can only respect how calmly President Bush handled news of the breaking disaster. He did the right thing by those kids, who in turn may have even helped keep cool to respond to such an unimaginable attack as the information started coming in.
…helped (the President) keep cool…
When the criticism of W’s reaction started I asked a few friends who jumped on the bandwagon what he should have done, what would have been better. None of them had much of an answer, and a couple could only sputter.
Any one who has spent time around kids knows how much they take their cues from the adults. I always thought W deserved credit for having the presence of mind to control his reaction in front of those kids.
That’s THE major difference, IMHO, between our current Golfer-in-Chief and his immediate predecessor. Obama has the flawless instinct for exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time – from “cops acting stupidly” to “I Won” to buzzing NYC in AF1 to bowing to anyone who might lead even a small principality that doesn’t speak English. And sadly, that’s the tip of the tip of the iceberg.
W nailed those moments. He just knew it would be a bad idea to bail on those kids… so he finished the story. He was a calm and reasurring adult, not a panicky teenager. He visited Ground Zero and when the workers said they couldn’t hear him, he immediately came back: “I can hear YOU. The whole world can hear you.” That idiot tossed a shoe at him – he just ducked it. He never tried to “punch down” by answering any of the pinheads whose most substantive critiques were to call him a chimp and give him a Hitler mustache. And of course, the most glaring thing: he gave up golf as frivolous during wartime, and spent nearly all his vacations in Crawford, working his own land.
He was no great shakes in domestic policy but he had a great sense of the moment and how to comport himself in it – primarily by thinking of others first, not himself first last and completely.
Well and stratagerilly put, ‘Fly.
‘Fly, the short version might be, George W. Bush is a gentleman. Obama is not.
Hear, hear.
Hear hear seconded.
And, from a purely pragmatic POV, keep in mind that there would have been some time-delay between telling President Bush and being able to move him into a secure position (which was also criticized). So, what was he supposed to do? Jump up and dance around screaming?
No, he did right. And I’m glad to hear those most personally affected saying that.
Here’s a fascinating read:
http://patdollard.com/2011/05/obama-hesitated-%E2%80%93-panetta-issued-order-to-kill-osama-bin-laden/
It obviously requires loads of verification, however, I find it quite plausible and may explain how Obama, only the night before the biggest covert operation in decades, could be so jovial and relaxed at the Correspondent’s Dinner. I know he’s a world class liar, but…..
I agree Bush was totally surprised by the 911 attacks.
However,the attackers were aided by another nation besides Bin Laden’s group.
Possibly Chinese or Israeli moles in our State Department gave Bin Laden inside information.