----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 12:39 PM
Subject: Re: Retaliation RE: Attack
>
> Me:
> Do you know the security information that they had, Bob? If so, tell us.
> Otherwise, he had better information to make this decision than you did.
> This is hardly the time to make political profit by attacking the
President
> - as two Massachusetts Democratic Congressmen have just learned, to their
> regret. I thought he should have been in DC, too. But I didn't know that
> the White House was a target at the time. As I do now, it seems to me not
> unreasonable to think that the assassination of the President would make
> things a lot worse. The Secret Service - which has a reputation for never
> leaking or lying - has reported that it had a credible threat against the
> President made by a person who had inside information on the security
> situation. Given that, his decision was both reasonable and commendable.
> It was, in fact, courageous. He had to know that he would face criticism
> from those who will take any opportunity to attack the President - even at
> a time like this - and he still decided to preserve the conti
> nuity of government. This was, as far as I know, the first time in
history
> that continuity of government plans came into effect, in fact. Under that
> situation, the President has few choices about what he can do, and
> preserving his own life should, in fact, be one of his first priorities.
Let me begin by saying that I am someone who wished he had a "lets keep GWB
our governor" bumper sticker during the last presidential election. To be
honest, I am probably leaning towards not giving him the benefit of the
doubt on most issues. But, I think that it was reasonable to assume that
the plane that hit the Pentagon had the White House as its first target.
Its also reasonable to assume that the Capital was the target of the plane
that crashed in Penn. Given the uncertainty of the moment, diverting
according to plan seems like the right thing to do..
Further, I do have second hand information that confirms the perceived
severity of this. (Forgive me if I wrote this here before). My wife takes
Greek with a woman who was the air traffic controller for this area when Air
Force One was headed into the airspace she controlled. She was told to
relay the message to the planes that were still in the air: land at the
nearest airport or be shot down.
We need good judgment now. Killing the president and/or much of congress
would have increased the chances that the US would blindly strike back at
the wrong target. Personally, I think that Bush showed courage in taking
actions that don't look macho.
Dan M.
