I know you were out of the loop and had a lot more to worry about then
this, but I thought that he had to speak up to go to Washington at all,
his security people were really against the idea, they wanted him to go
to Cheyenne mountain. Are you going to throw stones at the Congress
people who were whisked away to 'secret locations'?
My two cents - Rudy G who I dislike was magnificent. George W who I
dislike was not. I particularly like the justification for him not using
Air Force One to return to the White House because it was targeted. Well
how about Air Force 3 or Air Force 56432. He is the president, he could
have any plane he wanted. A man of true leadership would have returned
immediately. He would have ordered his security people to get him back
to Washington safely.
So let me answer the group of responses that my negative comments on Bush engendered. It was my gut reaction on Tuesday that Bush was "absent" during all the chaos while Rudy was present. William Safire said as much the next day in his op ed piece in the Times and the administration was quick to mount a campaign (a spin) to counter this impression. But if you listen to the way they spun the story, it was always Bush doing what he was told to do, by the Secret Service, by Chainey. I do not think that he was a coward but I don't think he was much of a leader either, not on that day at least. he has done well since then and it may simply be that Rudy has had a tough year and it has changed him, he has grown. I hope Bush grows as well. We need him to be a leader now.
