Quote Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing View Post
Quote Originally Posted by TitoFan View Post
George and Laura Bush may very well be nice people and all that. But there's a world of difference between being a nice guy and being a good President. Kirk's point on his "hiding" after 9/11 is stupid. Being in Nebraska or going to the White House, no one doubts that Bush was taking the events of 9/11 seriously. My point continues being that Bush squandered a golden opportunity to gain valuable, permanent diplomatic ground in the months and years after the attacks. His WMD fiasco, which still hasn't been responded to by any of the forum's known Bush supporters (yourself, Lyle, VictorCharlie).... was laughable and ridiculous. A skillful President at foreign affairs would've gotten 10 times the mileage out of 9/11 than Bush did. We're not in the Cold War years anymore, where it was just the U.S. and the USSR, and the rest of the world didn't matter. It's a bit more complicated now.
I'm not saying he didn't take the events of 9/11 seriously, I'm just saying he took them seriously from a safe distance. Giuliani was running the show until Bush eventually turned up for a stage-managed event with his bullhorn.

I'm sure we agree that was out of his hands. The Secret Service wasn't going to let the President board a plane and head to either the White House OR New York City, when it was still unclear whether any further attacks were planned. My own point is that Bush responded to 9/11 as much any other President would have. It's a carefully rehearsed script aimed at effective response to any national emergency. Which is why IMO Bush gets neither kudos or "demerits" for his own response. My point is Bush's continued response after the immediate events had passed. That's where his ineptitude began showing once again.