Thursday, August 05, 2004
John Kerry, Michael Moore, and the "seven minutes"
I have been bashing John Kerry a lot recently, and I really do not mean to. There have been times in the last few months when I even thought I could vote for him. But I've been travelling in Europe for almost three weeks, and the constant exposure to our presidential campaign through the prism of the European press seems to be weakening my self-restraint. I could't believe, for example, that John Kerry would really pick up Michael Moore's ridiculous argument that George Bush was somehow derelict on 9/11 by continuing to sit with the school children after he had learned of the attacks. But, against all odds, Kerry did exactly that:
This is risable, and begs one to ask what precise point Kerry might be making?
Is it that Bush deliberated too much in his response to the attacks?
Is it that "the seven minutes of inaction" would have made a difference on that day? If so, what difference?
Is it that Bush is less decisive than Kerry would be?
Is it that Bush is to be faulted for showing emotion on that day? Is he too human? Is he unfit for command because of this brief hesitation?
Is it that Bush was putting his own security in jeopardy by not immediately fleeing to Air Force One? Heh.
Given Kerry's implication that a response in those seven minutes depended upon the personal initiative of the President, is his point that we should presume that a Kerry Administration will take no action without the immediate and personal involvement of the President?
As laughable as it is for John Kerry to propose that he knows he would have reacted differently on that day, or in some more effective way, and as unprincipled as it is for him to embrace one of the many slanders of Farenheit 911, it is not at all clear what point he is making in this particular criticism of George W. Bush. Somebody should ask him to explain it to us.
"I would have told those kids very politely and nicely that the president of the United States had something that he needed to attend to," Kerry said before flying to Missouri to resume his cross-country campaign trip. "And I would have attended to it."
This is risable, and begs one to ask what precise point Kerry might be making?
Is it that Bush deliberated too much in his response to the attacks?
Is it that "the seven minutes of inaction" would have made a difference on that day? If so, what difference?
Is it that Bush is less decisive than Kerry would be?
Is it that Bush is to be faulted for showing emotion on that day? Is he too human? Is he unfit for command because of this brief hesitation?
Is it that Bush was putting his own security in jeopardy by not immediately fleeing to Air Force One? Heh.
Given Kerry's implication that a response in those seven minutes depended upon the personal initiative of the President, is his point that we should presume that a Kerry Administration will take no action without the immediate and personal involvement of the President?
As laughable as it is for John Kerry to propose that he knows he would have reacted differently on that day, or in some more effective way, and as unprincipled as it is for him to embrace one of the many slanders of Farenheit 911, it is not at all clear what point he is making in this particular criticism of George W. Bush. Somebody should ask him to explain it to us.
2 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Aug 05, 10:03:00 PM:
Kerry is an unoriginal idiot. It's obvious that he heard that one of the most powerful scenes in F9/11 is "the 7 minutes". He's just glomming on Moore which shows how mainstrem Moore is for the Donks.
Rob A.
(F?WF?)
By 
WatchFires, at
Fri Aug 06, 11:07:00 AM:
Re: the "seven minutes of inaction"--I posted a timeline of that day's events and begged people to find me anything Bush could have done to prevent either AA 77 or UA 93 from crashing (since that's the charge)--nobody took me up (but then nobody reads my blog, so I can't get too excited)
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