Analysis of Bush?s inaction at the Booker Elementary School
Excerpts from Webster Tarplex’s book ?9/11 Synthetic Terrorism? (2005)
“The children were opening their books to read a story together when Bush’s White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card entered the room and whispered to Bush: “A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack? (San Francisco Chronicle, Sep. 11, 2002). Bush did not respond. He did not ask questions. He wanted no further information. He gave no orders or directives. He tasked no bureaucracies. He did literally nothing. Bush had run for president with the admission that he was a person of limited mental ability, but one who would hire the best advisors available. This moment showed the fatal weakness of that formula, of the oligarchical presidency.” (pp. 275-6)
“Bush’s defense, as sumarized by the 9/11 commission was that “the President felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening? (9/11 commission report p. 38). This is exactly the ceremonial conception of the weak presidency, which sees the office as a symbol and object of popular emotional cathexis or focus, rather than as a policy-making post oriented toward action in the real world. It was left for the foreign press to ask the obvious question: whatever Bush’s animadversions might have been, why was he not picked up and carried out”…What strange process was at work behind the scenes to leave Bush as a sitting duck in a highly publicized location at a time of gravest danger”…The lackadaisical response to Bush’s Secret Service detail contrasts sharply with the aggressive manhandling of Cheney, who was lifted up by main force and carried toward the PEOC, the White House bunked, by Secret Service agents.” (pp. 277)
“As for Bush, he was taking orders from his handlers, as usual. From the back of the room, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer held up a sheet of paper with the words “DON”T SAY ANYTHING YET? written on it in big block letters (Washington Times, Oct. 7, 2002). In the interval, Bush was listening to a pupil read the celebrated story of “My Pet Goat” while the crisis unfolded around him.” (p. 277) […]
“One way to account for Bush’s behavior in the classroom that morning, and perhaps the most likely one, is the notion that Bush simply froze in fear and insecurity about what to do….The 9/11 commission accepted without criticism and even without comment Bush’s absurd decision to continue reading the story about the goat while the country was under attack, along with his explanation that this was motivated in his own mind by the desire to project an image of strength ? an answer which suggests that he was more concerned about maintaining appearances in his own delusional world than he was about providing concrete measures of national defense in this world.” (p.277-8)