Please e-mail Al Franken about the "7 Minute" thing.

[skypilot]

I emailed AAR yesterday about Franken repeatedly referring to Bush sitting in the classroom for "7 minutes" on 9/11. As has been stated repeatedly on this board, Bush spent much more than seven minutes in that school after learning of the second attack. Unfortunately, Franken repeats "7 minutes" more than anyone else it seems. Although 7 minutes of inactivity after the second crash is bad that number doesn't quite do justice to the facts and it would be great to see "7 minutes" NOT drilled into peoples' heads. If he is going to bring this up as often as he does (and it's great that he brings it up often) then he should give a more accurate picture of just how much time Bush spent endangering those elementary school students while hijacked planes were still in the air.

[ochazuke]

1. What happened after the 7 minutes?

I recall seeing a photo of him in a room with a TV. I am thinking it was at the school.

[skypilot]

2. Yes, there was that and then...

...he gathered the press and THE STUDENTS in the school library and announced that the country had suffered a terrorist attack. Remember, these are the same children that he supposedly didn't want to alarm and yet he makes that announcement in front of them. More important is the fact that no thought seems to have been given to the possibility that the terrorists might try to target Bush at the school seeing as he was at a publicized photo-op. If the terrorists had done that those children would have been caught in the middle. The longer he stayed at that school the more he was pressing his luck and the luck of the students and faculty. He pressed that luck for considerably more than 7 minutes.

[flordehinojos]

3. I read that on his most recent interview on Larry King, Bush defended the

"7 minutes" by saying that he had made the decision to let the program play out.

GIVEN THE FACT THAT THE NATURE OF HIS JOB REQUIRED HIM TO REACT TO AN EMERGENCY AND HE DID NOT, ONE HAS TO WONDER, WHICH PROGRAM WAS HE LETTING PLAY OUT? THE ONE IN WHICH THE TERRORISTS COULD COMPLETE THEIR ATTACK UPON THIS COUNTRY SO THAT HE THEN COULD COME UP WITH THE WMD CHARGE, THE PATRIOT ACT, THE HOMELAND SECURITY, AND THE NEW DEFENSE MINISTRY CZAR, I.E. BUSH'S DICTATORSHIP?

OR... THE PROGRAM AT THE SCHOOL?

[skypilot]

4. I never heard that interview but...

..."let the program play out" sounds like a typically vague and wishy-washy Bush response.

[ochazuke]

5. Giving Bush a bye on the 7 minutes

Lots of people do, and most of them would probably forgive him anything as long as he supports their rightist agendas, but I wonder if the fact that kids were involved has anything to do with it. Americans have a strange attitude towards kids. Americans abuse them more than most societies that I'm familiar with, yet in public protest that "it's all about the children" and other B.S.

If bush had been watching a movie, lunching with a lobbyist or reading the newspaper for seven minutes after being told "America is under attack", I think fewer people would forgive him.

[NewJeffCT]

6. wasn't there also a 20 minute photo-op after the 7 minutes?

Or, am I mixing up events?

[skypilot]

7. That is why I started this thread.

Bush was in the school for at least another 20 minutes after the 7 minutes that are constantly being mentioned. Those 20 minutes were not part of the original photo-op which was ostensibly to promote reading but those 20 minutes were nonetheless spent in the midst of those children and as I stated in an earlier post hijacked planes were still in the air.

[Shallah Kali]

8. Pics of Bush scaring the kids annoucing the US was under attack

http://www.sarasota.k12.fl.us/emma/9.11.01/photogallery7.html
http://www.sarasota.k12.fl.us/emma/9.11.01/photogallery8.html

I wish someone would get ahold of the film footage from not just the book reading that Moore got but the camera mugging after.

[skypilot]

9. You know what's interesting??

Look at how many pictures of Bush have apparently been REMOVED from that gallery. Bush was the main attraction at this event, yet look at how FEW pictures there are of him. This gallery has obviously been heavily edited. They probably want to give the impression that Bush wasn't there for very long--which he shouldn't have been--but we know different.