Bush's yellow streak showed through

or .... my memory of 9-11.

I suppose the media will remind us Tuesday -- all day -- of that tragic day.

I never will forget that day. While I stood watching the TV as that first tower burned, I asked my wife:

"Has President Bush made any comment ? ". She saId he was in Florida. I glanced at my watch and did a quick mental calculation. I said: "It shouldn't take him more than three hours to get back to D.C".

After lunch, I saw a bulletin that Bush had landed in Louisiana. I thought he had stopped by one of those military bases to pick up a few experts in urban warfare. I told my wife -- "They should be getting to D.C. in another couple of hours".

About dinner time, I saw another bulletin that informed us that Bush had landed in Montana and was being hustled off to safety inside of a mountain. I said to my wife, " It would seem that Bush's present trajectory will have him in Canada in time for bed and Moscow in time for Breakfast". I had always been under the impression that the job of a leader -- in an emergency -- was to lead. Not to hide.

W. S. Maugham once wrote a short story about the "yellow streak". It dealt with the character required to build an empire. He said that no matter what -- and no matter how high a man rose -- the yellow streak would always show through. In favor of Maugham's argument I would like to submit as proof, our very own beloved leader -- Dubya.

If we read anything about George W. Bush's life we will know that when the call went out for young men to fight for their country in the 1960s, Bush's daddy bought him a berth in the Texas Air National Guard. His ass was too precious (and nervous) to waste defending America. Knowing that -- why was I surprised when the yellow streak showed through on 9-11 ?

this a subject of the media?

I wish I knew. The media overlooks a lot of things that I can't understand. Can you imagine the journalist of the past being to bashful to inform their readers of such things ? I begin to wonder if the large salaries paid them by Big Business has not turned the Fourth Estate into the Fifth Column. Not treasonous to the government, mind you. But to the free people of whom Jefferson felt was the beneficiary of a Free Press.

I doubt that Pravda was ever more house broken than the present American news media.

I'm a bit upstream from the WTC in a little Hudson River village. We used to take visitors down to the little park by the river (about 2 blocks) to show them the Twin Towers on the left and the Tappan Zee on the right. People were running in the street that day wondering what was going on, what was coming next, and who is not accounted for. When the Pentagon was hit, I knew it was an official invitation to war. When the towers came down...that was an entirely different type of hit. Simply unreal in the most horrifying way. We waited and waited for the President to speak. Like you, I was offended that he was hiding out while the real heroes of the day pushed front and center. K&R! :kick:

It's much easier giving orders from a distance.

...though I'm sure he has buckets of it to spare. It's telling, though, that despite all his swagger over the years, when his own sorry ass was possibly at risk, he didn't trust his posse of incompetent ideologues to keep him safe, either.