Well, today comes news that the plane was within moments of getting shot down:
| WASHINGTON - As a wayward Cessna flew deep in restricted airspace, national security officials were on the phone discussing whether to implement the last line of defense: shooting it down.
The single-engine Cessna that prompted a frenzied evacuation of the White House, Capitol and Supreme Court on Wednesday veered away from downtown landmarks just before that decision needed to be made. But it was a close call. One senior Bush administration counterterrorism official said it was "a real finger-biting period because they came very close to ordering a shot against a general aircraft." |
Fair enough. Except, as David Corn points out, for this part of the story:
| President Bush was not told of the threat until he finished a bicycle ride at a Maryland wildlife center, nearly 40 minutes after the plane had been forced to turn away, administration officials said. |
A civilian aircraft was nearly shot down over Washington, DC, but the President wasn't notified until 40 minutes later? Here's more from the NYTimes story:
| The incident briefly put the capital at its highest stage of alert as the plane flew toward the city, violating restricted airspace rules put in effect around Washington after the Sept. 11 attacks.
After it was chased by a Black Hawk helicopter and two fighters fired warning flares, the Cessna, which was flown by a pilot and his student who had apparently veered off course, finally responded. The pilots were questioned and released Wednesday afternoon, but not before their errant flight set off waves of anxiety in Washington[...] At the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in suburban Maryland, a half-hour's drive from the White House, Mr. Bush's Secret Service detail - following him on bicycles and in vehicles as he got some midday exercise after returning the previous night from a five-day trip to Russia, Latvia, Georgia and the Netherlands - decided not to inform him of what was unfolding, said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman. Mr. McClellan said the members of the security detail had decided that Mr. Bush need not be informed because there was no danger to him and because procedures for intercepting the airplane, evacuating buildings in Washington and increasing security at the White House did not require his authorization. The Secret Service agents did not consult with Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, or other senior administration officials, Mr. McClellan said. |
Is it just me, or does that answer make no sense. The security procedures don't even require that he be notified? What if it was a real threat? There's more at stake than just his safety and security. What about the rest of DC? Shouldn't he at least be NOTIFIED of the problem? There was the real possibility that a civilian aircraft could have been shot down over the city, and the procedures in place don't require the president should be involved in making the decision if at all possible? Was his bike ride more important than a potentially serious threat to Washington DC?
Initially I was skeptical of my friend Jessie's comparison of Bush to Sigfried & Roy, but I dunno...
| When my ex-wife was writing Siegfried & Roy's memoirs, I spent time with them and learned the basics of magic. At bottom, it's about misdirection--get the audience looking one way while the magician does something in another. Simple, but the audience falls for it all the time.
The White House magicians aren't amusing or entertaining--they just deceive. Next time this happens, don't look at the Cessna. Look at Bush and Cheney. They're lousy magicians. Sure, they fool millions. No reason they should fool you. |
There really are only two explanations. Either the President has set up a security process that intentionally leaves him out of the loop - a bafflingly stupid decision - or they knew this wasn't a real threat but are playing it up nonetheless. Given Tom Ridge's accidental admission this week that the Bush administration has indeed played politics with terror warnings in the past, well...
| The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says.
Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled. His comments at a Washington forum describe spirited debates over terrorist intelligence and provide rare insight into the inner workings of the nation's homeland security apparatus. Ridge said he wanted to "debunk the myth" that his agency was responsible for repeatedly raising the alert under a color-coded system he unveiled in 2002. "More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' " |
First we get rock solid proof that the prior to the war, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," and that they were aiming for a timeline that would influence our midterm elections. Now we get an admission that they played politics with the terror alert system in the run-up to our presidential election.
Where is the outrage? Where? How anyone can support this administration is just beyond me.
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