Finishing the Story

I find this really interesting.

Bush explains 9/11 classroom reaction

Former President George W. Bush says what some people took as his apparent lack of reaction to the first news of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was actually a conscious decision on his part to project an aura of calm in a crisis.

[…] “My first reaction was anger. Who the hell would do that to America? Then I immediately focused on the children, and the contrast between the attack and the innocence of children,” Bush says in an excerpt of the interview shown to television writers on Thursday.

Michael Moore is obsessed with this. He started his film Fahrenheit 9/11 wondering about what Bush was doing during this time (a film I turned off halfway through because it was intellectually bankrupt, and – perhaps worse – super-boring). And Moore spent a chunk of his book “Dude WHere’s My Country?” talking about this (which is the last thing of Moore’s I consumed because I truly think the man is dishonest).

I’ve always been fascinated by Moore’s and other people’s obsession with the few minutes Bush kept reading this book on that fateful day. I mean, what did these people expect him to do? Jump up out of his chair like a crazed fool and run for the door? Additionally, what could he have done in those few minutes that would have changed anything? The acute situation was unfolding and the military and police were responding, so it’s not like everyone was standing around waiting for Bush to lead the way. (Hell, Cheney was around, and God knows he lived for things like this. He would have been ten times as effective as Bush in leading a response anyway.)

Furthermore, what did Bush’s actions imply? That he didn’t care? Worse – was he somehow involved? Moore actually implies this, heavily, in his book. It’s absurd.

Believe me, I have no love for George W. Bush. But under the circumstances, he did the only logical thing he could do here. And by doing so, he’s give us 10 years of entertainment watching Michael Moore make an absolute fool out of himself obsessing over it.