Bush's Speech and Press Conference

[Skunk]

It would also appear that the President doesn't take the time to familiarise himself with issues before acting upon them, trusting instead that his subordinates will do the work and tell him how to react:

"Bush, in fact, does not read his President's Daily Briefs, but has them orally summarised every morning by the CIA director, George Tenet. President Clinton, by contrast, read them closely and alone, preventing any aides from interpreting what he wanted to know first-hand. He extensively marked up his PDBs, demanding action on this or that, which is almost certainly the likely reason the Bush administration withheld his memoranda from the 9/11 commission.

"I know he doesn't read," one former Bush national security council staffer told me. Several other former NSC staffers corroborated this. It seems highly unlikely that he read the national intelligence estimate on WMD before the Iraq war that consigned contrary evidence and caveats that undermined the case to footnotes and fine print. Nor is there any evidence that he read the state department's 17-volume report, The Future of Iraq, warning of nearly all the postwar pitfalls, that was shelved by the neocons in the Pentagon and Vice-President Cheney's office...

As the iconic image of the "war president" has tattered, another picture has emerged. Bush appears as a passive manager who enjoys sitting atop a hierarchical structure, unwilling and unable to do the hard work a real manager has to do to run the largest enterprise in the world. He does not seem to absorb data unless it is presented to him in simple, clear fashion by people whose judgment he trusts. He is receptive to information that agrees with his point of view rather than information that challenges it. This leads to enormous power on the part of the trusted interlocutors, who know and bolster his predilections."
Guardian, April 15th, 2004


And then of course, there was this gaff at the news conference which just highlights the point that his inability/unwillingness to familiarise himself with facts makes him grossly unfit for the office of president.

[ 04-16-2004, 06:15 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

[Timber Loftis]

Bush, in fact, does not read his President's Daily Briefs

Look, I'll be the first to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you supporting the notion that our favorite Arkansas trailer park trash was a much better President that the Texas oil man. However, I'd like to point out that different people have different styles and tolerance to look at minutae.

This morning I have to meet with 2 partners to brief them on something, a very complicated matter that I've prepared upwards of 50 pages of review and 4 charts and tables for. However, I know darned good and well that if I can't boil it down to one page of information they will throw it back in my face and just say "too much." Some leaders view the job of subordinates as weeding through all the chaff -- they just want the wheat. I'd say more than half of the senior attorneys I've met operate that way.

[Skunk]

The PDB's are already a summarisation of the most important issues. Any further attempt to filter them would cause important information to be removed - and allow juniors to make the decisions that the boss is supposed to make.

In this instance then, the president becomes a waste of space - no-one would miss him if he died tommorow because all the real decisions are made by others. He's behaving like an absent shareholder rather than a manager, just signing on the dotted line whenever papers arrive in the post.

[skywalker]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Mark, did YOU envision someone flying a plane into a building -- for real? I mean, if you did, well good for you, but I did not. I mean a little prop plane maybe. But, a 747 or 3 aimed at buildings like the WTC? Prior to 9/11 that was stuff for only the movies.

OK, Timber, let's just "back this truck up" again. The point that so many have missed about this ridiculous quote:

Originally quoted by Bush: But there was nobody in our government at least — and I don't think the prior government — could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale.

It's not about the result of the attack, it is the means to which the end is reached. Intelligence warned of possible hijackings:

Originally printed in the August 6, 2001 PDB: We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists. Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

So I care very little if no one could predict the 9/11 tragedy. The planes into buildings line is a smoke screen to cover the failure to stop the horrible event from happening. It is true that in hindsight it is easy to see what could have been done. But I do think they should have been able to do something to lessen the chances of hijackings at all the airports in just the major cities.

I never said I could envision the scenario, I did not have the the information. It's cold comfort though, because if I had been prescient enough to see this about to happen, I would be labeled a Conspiracy Theorist or a nut.
Hmmmm, so what if people already say that?

Mark

[Ziroc]

Originally posted by skywalker: Have you heard about the plots to crash planes into the Atlanta Olympics, the Eiffel Tower, the pilot episode of The Lone Gunman shown in the Spring of 2001? The show had the threat of a passenger plane being flown into the WTC. As a matter of fact, Condi retracted her statement about the subject because it had been imagined. Mark

And did you know about these before or AFTER 9/11? 20/20 dude.. 20/20....

[skywalker]

No, the question is, is did they know? Did you you read my post above yours Ziroc? I've addressed your question there.

Who cares whether "I" knew or not? This is not the issue. The issue is that hijack warnings had been sounded, but I was not told about it. That's the other problem, we should have been warned to be extra careful about suspicious characters at airports.

Once again, I question the government or Bush and then I am the focus. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Mark

[ 04-18-2004, 06:55 AM: Message edited by: skywalker ]

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Illumina Drathiran'ar: I'm with Skunk. Most people aren't comfortable speaking in public, this is true. The presidency is NOT a job for "most people." There are valid ways to support Bush than to bring up this argument, Hierophant. This is not one of them.

I can agree with you Illumina that the Presidentcy is not a job for most people, But if I had to choose, and I do, between people running for President, speaking ability is very low on the list, talk is cheap, very very cheap, I would much rather have a President that says what he means and means what he says! I learned that in the sand box in Kindergarden

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by skywalker: No, the question is, is did they know? Did you you read my post above yours Ziroc? I've addressed your question there. Who cares whether "I" knew or not? This is not the issue. The issue is that hijack warnings had been sounded, but I was not told about it. That's the other problem, we should have been warned to be extra careful about suspicious characters at airports. Once again, I question the government or Bush and then I am the focus. [img]tongue.gif[/img] Mark

Skywalker, hijackings are going to happen, so are robberies, murders, rapes and other bad things! Consider yourself warned

[Ziroc]

Originally posted by skywalker: No, the question is, is did they know? Did you you read my post above yours Ziroc? I've addressed your question there. Who cares whether "I" knew or not? This is not the issue. The issue is that hijack warnings had been sounded, but I was not told about it. That's the other problem, we should have been warned to be extra careful about suspicious characters at airports. Once again, I question the government or Bush and then I am the focus. [img]tongue.gif[/img] Mark

The fact is, even for the administration, they didn't expect this to happen. I know I didn't, and I am very involved with what goes on in the news and what isn't reported. We simply missed it. Looking to blame someone is not what we need now, what we need, is to understand we didn't have good intel, and we gotta get better. We now have the CIA, FBI and other agencies sharing data, which is a great step in the right direction.

I see a LOT of people dying to pin this on Bush--just because they don't personally like him, and you know, the day this happened, I KNEW there would be the finger pointing, but you know what Mark? We are human, and we make mistakes--not even mistakes really, since we cannot know what is going on everywhere and all times. If we HAD that power, you would be screaming that we live in a government controlled society.

[Chewbacca]

Blame? Blame is weak. Responibility, accountability- Either take it or someone will give it to you.


The purpose of the 9-11 commission is to identify how the terrorists did it seemingly undetected and how similiar events can be prevented in the future. This means that mistakes made must be identified and corrected. The people who have made mistakes are responsibile for the mistakes they have made.

Now unless anyone here thinks that the totalility of the Bush adminstration (from Bush on down) is infallible and pefect in everyway, then you must concede that there may be mistakes to learn from.

Of course some people just love Bush blindly, like a happy family pet or an endearing old person. So any critism and accountability shoveled his direction in this regard is countered with what seems like naive rambling on how nothing could have been changed to prevent the attacks from happening. WELL THATS NOT THE POINT.

The point is to identify mistakes made so they are not repeated. Correction of errors.

Bush's unabashed defeners and apoligists, in their zest to attack Bush's critics are not being helpful in this regard. So long as mistakes are not admited, they will typically not be corrected.