Has anyone else seen this e-mail? Give me some info to rebut this.

[texas1928]

Kerry's Hindsight Betrays the Horror of 9/11
By Bobby Eberle
August 9, 2004

It was a beautiful Tuesday morning in Washington, DC. The sky was blue; the air was crisp; and millions of Americans were making their way to their jobs just like they did on any other day. But this was no ordinary day. In fact it was a day that would change my life and change the course of American history. On this day, September 11, 2001, I rode with the top down in my friend's convertible along the highway toward the Pentagon. As I listened in disbelief to the radio reports of terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, I was snapped back into reality by the roar of jet engines only a couple hundred feet above my head. Flight 77 then crashed in front of my eyes in a fiery explosion into the Pentagon.

I sat stunned in the car as we pulled to the side of the freeway. I looked around only to see more stunned looks -- some eyes wide with shock, others streaming with tears. Earlier, when President Bush received word of the second World Trade Center attack, he sat for seven minutes taking in what had just happened and fulfilling his obligation to the Florida students to whom he was reading. I sat in shock, and the president calmly sat and contemplated his next move. We now know, however, that had John Kerry been president, he would have acted -- and he would have done so immediately.

Speaking at the Unity Conference, a quadrennial gathering of the four largest minority journalism associations, Sen. Kerry told the audience, "First of all, had I been reading to children, and had my top aide whispered in my ear, 'America is under attack,' I would have told those kids very politely and nicely that the president of the United States had business that he needed to attend to, and I would have attended to it."

Although plenty has been said regarding President Bush and his efforts in the war on terror, until Kerry's comment, no political figure, neither Republican nor Democrat, has criticized President Bush's actions on that terrible day. Now, with either the benefit of divine hindsight or a complete lack of understanding of the fog of the day, Kerry claims he could have done things better. He would have "attended to business."

Just what would Kerry have done upon hearing the news? How could things have run more smoothly under President Kerry from the time he was whispered the information until the time he left the classroom? In those seven minutes could we have saved an additional life? Could we have gotten a jump start on attacking al Qaeda?

In Kerry's zeal for the White House, he has shown in one sentence that playing politics with the memory of 9/11 is not beyond his limits of decency. It is impossible to say what we would have or could have done during 9/11. It is only possible to say what each one of us did do as the events unfolded on that fateful day.

I sat stunned until the realization hit us that we needed to call loved ones to let them know what was happening. President Bush was charting a course of action while remaining calm in a classroom of children. Despite what Kerry says he would have done on 9/11, upon hearing the news of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center, Kerry told CNN's Larry King that he and fellow senators "watched the second plane come in to the building."

"And we shortly thereafter sat down at the table and then we just realized nobody could think," Kerry continued to King.

Kerry said he was shaken out of his non-thinking state by seeing the "cloud of explosion at the Pentagon." From the time between the second World Trade Center attack and the attack on the Pentagon, forty minutes had elapsed. That's forty minutes of the Democrats' presidential nominee being unable to think. Yet despite the fact that as senator, Kerry was unable to think for forty minutes, the American public is supposed to believe that President Bush was wrong to continue reading for seven minutes and that as president, Kerry would have acted immediately.

This notion would be ridiculous if it weren't so tragic. No one, except Kerry it seems, can honestly say how they would have acted had they been in a different role on September 11, 2001. If you were a firefighter, with a wife and children at home and you were standing at the doors of one of the World Trade Center towers, would you have rushed in? If the situation arose, and as a fighter pilot you were ordered to kill innocent American civilians on a passenger airliner, could you have done it? These are unknown questions and will always remain unknown. Tragedies such as 9/11 make heroes out of normal people, and turn novice officeholders into leaders. Kerry, to his shame, claims a course of action that can never be known.

This campaign for president of the United States will surely have its share of attack ads, accusations, and counter accusations. As it unfolds, I can only hope that Sen. Kerry will remember 9/11 for what it was -- a terrible day for America, a day that ended the lives of some and changed the lives of all. In the mean time, if given the choice between a man who sat calmly for seven minutes in order to process unspeakable terrorist attacks and a man who sat for forty minutes unable to think, I'll take the former any day of the week.

---

Bobby Eberle is President and CEO of GOPUSA (www.GOPUSA.com), a news, information, and commentary company based in Houston, TX. He holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Rice University.

--------------------

Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. BS. anyone who has been in a crisis knows that they WOULD REACT

instantly. End of story.

Maybe I should be president:

The INSTANT i heard about the second plane, i turned on CNN and went to the web (get more info). Then I called my wife, who was en route to NYC (took defensive action).

That was just in the FIRST 60 seconds.

Did the firefighters and police react instantly? Yeah, they did too.

[nikatnyte]

3. A real leader would have known what to do

"I sat in shock, and the president calmly sat and contemplated his next move."

You've got to be kidding me -- do people actually BELIEVE this bullshit??

[wurzel]

2. I wonder if this attitude be accepted if it was Clinton who sat there.

Somehow I don't think so. That seven minutes would be the only ad the Republicans would need.

[yankeeinlouisiana]

4. Please!

"that playing politics with the memory of 9/11"

And what was that little fund raiser of a picture of * sitting on Airforce 1 going for? $150! That was their first attempt of "playing politics with the memory of 9/11".

Remember that picture. It was * sitting on a plane looking out the window wondering what to do? what to do? As he was going from state to state so the terra-ists wouldn't get him.

That is playing politics with the memory of 9/11!!

[bleedingedge]

5. A "Friend" Gave Me The Same BS A While Ago

Her question was "What was he supposed to do, jump out of the chair like his hair was on fire?"

Here's what I told her:

Let's imagine you're sitting at work one day and your boss comes up to you and says "Betty, there's been an accident at the place where your daughter works. A lot of people are dead or hurt. Just thought you'd want to know."

Now, are you going to sit there at your desk for the next 7 minutes contemplating your strategy? HELL NO.

[texas1928]

6. SO does anyone have anything to debunk this?

I am trying to make a Republican see the light here.

[nyhuskyfan]

8. Simple

Kerry wasn't in a position to do anything at that point. President Bush was in a leadership situation where important questions needed to be asked and decisions needed to be made -- How many airlines have been hijacked? do we shoot them down? What places need to be evacuated? Am I a threat as I sit here in a room ful of school children for goodness sakes? If the President had left the classroom and ordered jets scrambled at that moment to protect our biggest cities, then maybe the Pentagon wouldn't have been hit.

Kerry was put in similar postiions of leadership where spur-of-the-monent thinking was needed, and he got a silver star and a bronze star from going after his attackers and helping pull a fallen soldier out of the river. As for the 40 minutes? That was just him telling a story. I'm sure there was some discussion going on in those rooms about what was happening and who was behind it.

The fact is that when the first plane hit (i.e. before he went into the classroom), they should have been fearing the worst and taking the necessarily steps. The attack fit exactly what you might expect from Al Qaeda (World Trade Center, airplanes) -- so he should have put two and two together and not said, "Must have been a really bad pilot". If you order jets scrambled and it turns out that it was just a drunk suicidal fool in a propellor plane, then no harm done.

It gets back to my arguments from the beginning. Sometimes bad things happen no matter how hard you try to stop them. All you ask from your leaders is that they at least try hard. Before the attacks, * was on the longest presidential vacation in 32 years. Cheney's counterterrorism task force had yet to meet ONCE, and the recommendations from Richard Clarke, Gary Hart, etc. were totally ignored. Between the August 6 PDB and September 11, Bush never once discussed the possibility of an attack with anyone on his staff. Then, after the planes hit, * sat in a chair so he wouldn't upset some second graders who would have forgotten the whole visit by lunchtime. Immediate action after the first plane hit might not have changed anything, but at least you could have said that the United States did everything in its power.

Can anyone honestly say that the Bush administration did everything it could have before September 11, or in those first fateful moments afterwards? The proof is right out there in the open, for all to see.

[bobbyboucher]

10. Terror warnings out the wazoo, PDB's saying Usama bin Laden

wants to attack the US and hijackings mentioned repeatedly. Then suddenly a plane hits the WTC and the President doesn't do a damn thing, not a single bell or whistle went off in his head? He decides a photo op is more important than getting to the bottom of it?

Not only that, a second plane hits the towers and he still sits there for seven more minutes. Come on!

Please don't let anyone compare what they were doing that day and how they reacted compared to Bush, it's not even close to the same thing. Bush had warning, not exact times and dates (as far as we have been told) but plenty of info that something could happen and hijackings were included. To act like he did that day is suspicious at best.

Maybe he wasn't served well by his people, but it is still inexplicable.

[GiovanniC]

7. What Did YOU Do on 9/11?

WARNING: This post contains adult content -- language. Viewer discretion is advised.

I was on the phone, and had three televisions on three different channels trying to figure out what was going on and attempting to make sure that everyone I knew was okay.

Of course, I don't have the United States military, the Joint Chiefs, NORAD, the Secret Service, the Governor of New York, the FAA, the Secretary of Defense, or the National Guard at my disposal, but if I did you can goddamn well be sure that I would be talking every fucking one of them and there would be some serious goddamn grownup shit going down.

I WOULD NOT be sitting there blankly in a room listening to "My Pet Goat" (PS - Bush wasn't READING to the kids, he was being READ TO. I'm sick of that bullshit lie).

I'd be on Air Force One and we'd be on our way to Washington DC if at all possible. Otherwise, we'd be on our way to NORAD headquarters. Fuck anyone who tried to tell me otherwise -- if I was the goddamn President of the United States, I call the shots!

But I am just a guy. I'm not the President of the United States. So while I was calling family members and friends, and watching the bodies falling from a thousand feet up in the air, the ACTUAL President of the United States was learning that the goat got into trouble for eating so many things he wasn't supposed to.

Motherfucker.

[Cuban_Liberal]

9. Thanks for re-posting this Republican POS screed here.

:wtf:

[texas1928]

13. I posted because everything I was saying to Repub friend was not getting

Through to him and I wanted some better responses. I don't know if he was trying to bait me or if he was serious. But I want to set him straight with an intelligent response than what one other person who is a repuke responded with to qoute "Kerry can suck my ass". Making inflamatory responses is not going to change anyones mind. But you come back with sound responses and proof then they have little to come back with.

[mbee]

11. Kerry was telling what he would have done as President, not as one of

100 Senators. I don't think Bush would have ever done anything because his Daddy was in the basement of the White House with John Major and Jim Baker and probably Dick Cheney. They just wanted their puppet to stay out of the way!

[ieoeja]

12. You're right.

We will never know what Kerry would have done. But we do know what Bush did. First, he sat in a classroom for several minutes until his aide came to him a second time and told him they should leave. He then jumped aboard Air Force I and ... ran away.

And as long as we're quoting appearances on Larry King Live, the first time Bush appeared on Larry King Live following 9-11 he said, "all I could think of was getting myself to safety".

[texas1928]

14. He did not just sit in the classroom

he knew about the first plane before he ever got out of the car. Repukes have tried to tell me he had know way of knowing. Well that is a load of Horse shit. You can not tell me that someone in that car did not have a cell phone.

[noamnety]

20. oooh do you have a link to that?

If there's a link to the Larry King transcript of that, I'd love to have it in my arsenal.

[Martin Eden]

15. "Mr. President, we are under attack"

Andrew Card whispered those words to Bush, who was already aware of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. The commander-in-chief's response to this news should have been automatic: politely excuse yourself and attend to your duty, as Senator Kerry says he would have done.

Seven minutes focusing on "My Pet Goat" might not have made any difference in the events of the day, but president Bush couldn't have known that at the time and his delay in attending to a national emergency reflects poorly on his qualities of command no matter how you spin it.

Naturally, the president's detractors have spun as much political capital out of this as they can, just as the White House works constantly to spin evrything in its favor.

Bobby Eberle is shocked ... shocked! ... to realize the Democrats would criticize the president's actions (or inactions) on that most terrible of days. What could possibly be worse than exploiting a national tragedy for political gain? Mr. Eberle writes:

In Kerry's zeal for the White House, he has shown in one sentence that playing politics with the memory of 9/11 is not beyond his limits of decency. It is impossible to say what we would have or could have done during 9/11. It is only possible to say what each one of us did do as the events unfolded on that fateful day.

Mr. Eberle fails to acknowledge that we expect our commander-in-chief to be decisive in times of unexpected crisis. The president is a national leader in whose hands we entrust our security; to suggest the president's performance under fire is not subject to scrutiny or criticism is to place off limits one of the most important criteria by which we choose our national leaders.

Furthermore, in terms of exploiting a national tragedy for political gain, no one has been more masterful at this than Karl Rove and the Bush White House. Despite the clear lack of a mandate in the 2000 election, Rove & Company have parlayed the president's post-9/11 approval ratings into the implementation of a domestic agenda far to the right of what candidate Bush represented. Had he truly extended the hand of compassionate conservatism and worked across the aisle to craft policies based on consensus rather than hard-right ideology, he could have been a true uniter rather than a divider.

Worst of all, Bush exploited the fear, anger, grief, patriotism, and trust the American people placed in him after 9/11 in order to carry out an invasion of Iraq that had been the goal of neoconservatives in his administration long before that fateful day in September. We were continually warned of mushroom clouds, Iraqi drones, and vast stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons by a White House that made these assertions with "no doubt," despite the fact the available intelligence offered more caveats than concrete proof. Osama bin Laden fell from view, while the president spoke of Saddam Hussein and 9/11 in the same context so often that a majority of Americans came to the mistaken believe Iraq was at least partly responsible for the deaths of 3000 innocent civilians in America.

Concientious informed citizens who denounced this propaganda were called "unpatriotic" and "Saddam sympathizers," while millions around the world protested in vain. Our troops were sent to fight and die before the United Nations inspectors were given the time to determine whether the huge stockpiles of WMD really existed. More than 900 young Americans in uniform have died for assertions which have proven false. This is what happens when the commander-in-chief "plays politics with the memory of 9/11."

Bobby Eberle bemoans the politicization of seven minutes of presidential indecision, while others bemoan a deliberate decision that will have us mired for several years in the costly and bloody quagmire known as Iraq.

[texas1928]

16. Thank you

That is close to what I said to him. Then I get a well he is no war hero, 2 of his 3 purple hearts were for self inflicted wounds.

[Martin Eden]

17. It was my pleasure to write it

Such a pleasure in fact, that I sent it as a LTTE in response to Eberle's column at that web site.

[DemonFighterLives]

19. Good for you

It is always hard to play the debunking game with W worshippers. As you can see the argument has already shifted. You beat them on one point and they are already on to another.
Kerry answered the darn question it a respectable manner and most anyone would have handled it much differently than Bushco. I can't see why this is the point that sticks out from the Unity Conference after * made a total fool out of himself.
Bush goofed around for a month on vacation and then played photo op while the country was under attack.

[texas1928]

21. Well instead of focusing on policy

we have to spend so much time focusing on this bull. you try to talk policy: education, economy, social security, or health care. and you get this bs about flesh wounds and military service.

[DemonFighterLives]

22. I hear ya

I think a large percentage of them are unreachable. Most of the world thinks those swift liars went over the line, but the neocons are eating it up like Kerry's band of brothers is destroyed. Now he shot himself too. I've been carrying on an Awol thread on another site and you'd be surprized what they find to talk about to try to derail the facts. They can't fess up to their hero not being what he claimed to be.

[texas1928]

23. I don't see how anyone can go over to the Repube sites

I have enough problems with indigestion without that.

[zulchzulu]

18. Commander in Chief vs. Senator - Who took the Presidential Oath?

It's a simple question.

1. Who took the presidential oath in 2001?

Another question:

2. Would the captain of a ship wait seven minutes without acting like he in charge of his boat if a hole was blown in the ship?

Answers:
1. Bush
2. No

Bush apologists with the highest level of moral subjectivity are the scum of our democracy today.

[TOhioLiberal]

24. What strikes me is....

Which viewing of the plane hitting the tower did he see? The email is (in the RNC's 'all or nothing' strategy) assuming the very first. How many times was that piece of gut-wrenching film shown in the hours and days following the attacks?

[ClassWarrior]

25. Tell the sender to provide some links to back up his "facts"

Don't do his work for him. Make him prove it!

See the discussion here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2185174#2185410

[texas1928]

26. I quieted him today.

it was fun. see my other post.http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=606101&mesg_id=606101 the John Kerry website did it.