[Vision2020] Inside "Bush's Brain"

[Joan Opyr]

Pat writes (in part):

"As someone else pointed out at the panel discussion at the Kenworthy Bush was not the only one who didn't know what to do. Bill Moyer on PBS has a great graphic in his program about the entire time the planes were being taken and there is nothing Bush could have done in those minutes that would have changed anything. He is after all just another stunned human being caught on camera at a time when the news was unthinkable. I don't expect any of you to change your mind about Bush but surely you can find a more middle of the road person to believe than MM or Kitty Kelly!"


1) For better or worse, Bush was not "just another stunned person" on 9/11.  He was the President of the United States.  It's his job to know what to do when the country is under attack, just as it was FDR's job back in 1941.  I think if you'll compare the two, you'll find that Bush doesn't hold up very well under comparison.  What did Mr. Bush do on 9/11?  He sat for seven minutes listening to a group of grade-schoolers reading My Pet Goat.  Then, while Richard Clarke set up the situation room at the White House, and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld assumed their positions of responsibility, Mr. Bush jetted around the country on Air Force One, from undisclosed location to undisclosed location.  He could, at any time, have delivered an address to the country via satellite (Air Force One is so equipped) about what he knew about what was going on, but he didn't.  Instead, that role was left to Rudy Giuliani in New York, Bill Clinton (who was out on the street shortly after the disaster happened, comforting residents and talking to reporters), and Donald Rumsfeld in DC.  These men assumed leadership and responsibility.  Mr. Bush did not.  His address to the nation, once he'd landed at last in far away Nebraska, was a nerve-wracking, crackly affair in which he conveyed nothing but terror and uncertainty.  Not helpful.  If that's what the nation needed, they could have called my grandmother in Raleigh, NC.  She was busy filling bottles with water in case Al Qaeda somehow managed to poison the Kerr Lake Reservoir.

2) You're looking for someone more middle-of-the-road to critique Mr. Bush's performance?  Why not look to Richard Clarke, our former counter-terrorism czar?  Or Kevin Phillips?  Or Paul O'Neill?  Wait -- those aren't middle-of-the-road critics, they're Republicans.  And they have found tremendous fault with Mr. Bush's behavior and reactions re: the events and aftermath of September 11th.  In addition to these critics, there are too many former CIA and other intelligence, military, and diplomatic operatives who have written well-researched critiques of the Bush Administration and its failed war on terror to name here.  Try running a search on Amazon  Then, go check out the books from the public library or do the Moscow economy a favor and buy them from Bookpeople.  If you want to read them all, though, I warn you -- you'll need a big bag.   

3) Kitty Kelley spells her last name with an "e."  I have a copy of her book here on my desk, and though I've only just begun to skim the surface, I can tell you that her citations are exhaustive.  Sure, her work is salacious, not to mention full of gossip, rumor, and innuendo, but if it's trash, at least it's well-documented trash.  Ms. Kelley is no William Manchester, but then, she's not trying to be.  She's a bestselling popular biographer who's been sued 14 times by her sad-sack subjects and has won each and every time.

4) Am I influenced by Michael Moore and Kitty Kelley as I get ready to register my 2004 Presidential vote?  No.  I'm influenced by my own experience and observations, and they all add up to this:  

Vote for Bush, get Dick.

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment     Get more from the Web.  FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
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