Runcible Blog

christmas?

Christmas just wasn't that eventful this year. As a result, I won't write about it. As more and more information concerning the September 11th government bungling, I came across this site which has a very detailed, down to the minute timeline of what happened that day (and yes, I read the whole thing...). If anyone has the patience to read it, it's interesting. Among other points, this one stands out as particularly bizarre:
9:05 A.M. Bush is still reading to 18 Booker Elementary School second-graders a story about a girl's pet goat. His chief of staff Andrew Card, whispers into his ear, "A second plane has hit the World Trade Center. America is under attack." [Telegraph, 12/16/01] He says nothing in response, but continues reading the goat story after a brief pause. Then, in an event noticeable in its absence, as one newspaper put it, "for some reason, Secret Service agents [do] not bustle him away." [Globe and Mail, 9/12/01] At some point shortly after, reporters ask him if he is aware of the two crashes and explosions. He nods and says he will talk about the situation later. [CNN, 9/12/01] Bush continues to read about goats for the next 20 minutes or so. The reason given is that they didn't want to scare the children.
I really hope the upcoming investigation into what went wrong will do some good and bring to light all of the obvious lapses that happened in the days prior to the 11th. It seems pretty clear to me that either there was some conspiracy to let the hijackers complete their scheme, or our government is incredibly inept. It may be a little of both. who knows? Either way, there are definitely people in the government who should be held accountable for the things that went wrong instead of being promoted for their efforts in the "war on terror".