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Undertoad · 08-17-2004, 11:26 AM

When people call me a Bush apologist it helps me to understand their point of view. I won't say what I think of the label because that way I retain this advantage. :P

Even if the entire attack was on at that point, it's stupid, self-indulgent and non-helpful second-guessing today almost three years later. Of course there were any number of worse reactions Bush could have had. He could have lept and ran out of the room without making any statements. This would have had the effect of putting the entire country into a deeper panic. Maybe the very very best reaction would be to quietly excuse himself to attend to the business of the country. But it was not up to him what the next immediate move was anyway, and the very big-picture seriousness was only wholly understood to us for months afterward.

The fact that the country was not really interested in his immediate reaction AT THE TIME tells you what you need to know about it.

It's stupid self-indulgence to only talk about seven minutes following the attack and to avoid the following seven days and seven months, in which the Pres acted in ways that 90% of the public reacted with a deep "hell yeah" no matter which political party they were in. To me, his action during THAT period was exactly right, and so it was to the rest of us too... resulting in stratospheric popularity numbers.

And self-indulgent, too, to look at only that period and not the period that followed, in which the resolve of the people fell and those popularity numbers slowly dribbled down to where they are now.

But of all the periods to look at and judge, those seven minutes are the stupidest.

08-17-2004, 11:26 AM	#18
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	When people call me a Bush apologist it helps me to understand their point of view. I won't say what I think of the label because that way I retain this advantage. :P Even if the entire attack was on at that point, it's stupid, self-indulgent and non-helpful second-guessing today almost three years later. Of course there were any number of worse reactions Bush could have had. He could have lept and ran out of the room without making any statements. This would have had the effect of putting the entire country into a deeper panic. Maybe the very very best reaction would be to quietly excuse himself to attend to the business of the country. But it was not up to him what the next immediate move was anyway, and the very big-picture seriousness was only wholly understood to us for months afterward. The fact that the country was not really interested in his immediate reaction AT THE TIME tells you what you need to know about it. It's stupid self-indulgence to only talk about seven minutes following the attack and to avoid the following seven days and seven months, in which the Pres acted in ways that 90% of the public reacted with a deep "hell yeah" no matter which political party they were in. To me, his action during THAT period was exactly right, and so it was to the rest of us too... resulting in stratospheric popularity numbers. And self-indulgent, too, to look at only that period and not the period that followed, in which the resolve of the people fell and those popularity numbers slowly dribbled down to where they are now. But of all the periods to look at and judge, those seven minutes are the stupidest.