It seems that yesterday's scare in DC was a good test for safety protocols and in general things went well. People were evacuated quickly and orderly, fighters made it to the scene quickly and the situation was dealt with. Even better, in this case which was not an attack but rather a mistake, no one was hurt. It seems no one told city officials, like the mayor, and that needs to be fixed. But there was anothing thing the seems very wrong about the events of yesterday. It seems through out all of this one person didn't know what was going on, our Commander in Chief, President Bush.
I just heard presidential spokesman Scott McClellan take questions from the press on this and it disgusting how he avoided the issue. He kept saying protocols were followed and people with him were informed, but no one told him until 36 minutes after the all clear was given. Mr McClellan just kept repeating that protocols were followed and you have to understand this all happened in a matter of minutes. That's not an answer, I'm sure in the event of a real attack it would also be a matter of minutes and I'd expect him to have to make decisions. Mr McClellan also said the protocols take into account where the president is and that the president was never considered to be in any danger. Well I'm sorry, the White House, Congress, Supreme Court and therefore the country were considered to be in danger, our president should have known about it, and in less time than it would have taken an ICBM to hit us (about 30 mins, less than 10 if launched from a submarine). One reporter even asked on a purely personal basis didn't someone thing to inform him his wife had been evacuated? The answer was that yes people were evacuated or moved to secure locations, not answering the question.
And what was President Bush doing during this time that was so important no one thought to interrupt him? He was biking with a high school friend at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Beltsville, MD. Seriously. And no one told him it seems Washington DC could be under attack and that the alert level had been raised to red. How can you not think of the video of him listening to school children reading "The Pet Goat" for 7 minutes on 9/11. Combine this with the fact that he's been on vacation 40% of the time and I think it paints a disturbing picture.
3 comments:
"And what was President Bush doing during this time that was so important no one thought to interrupt him? He was biking..." Well, it depends how important biking is for one ... Or, maybe, he was multitasking: both biking with a friend in the woods and handling critical national emergency at the same time... Some superman can do that.
Hmm, maybe he wasn't so much biking but evacuating. I mean, this season's "24" showed us that he wouldn't have been safe on Air Force 1. Perhaps hiding out on the Maryland singletrack with a half dozen Powerbars, a helmet and and an air pump makes some sense ;-)
Let's be fair to the staff at the white house, in a state of emergency the last thing they needed was some guy giving them dumb things to do.
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