By comparison, here's how George W. Bush spent the morning of September 11, 2001:
The PM was sipping tea at 10.30am when it was confirmed by his chief of staff Jonathan Powell that terrorists had hit London with force.
Mr Blair was given a chilling telephone briefing by Home Secretary Charles Clarke, who had just chaired a security meeting in a bomb-proof bunker under Downing Street.
Visibly-shaken, the PM went back to finish a session with G8 leaders but left early to make a live TV statement, vowing never to surrender to terrorists.
What we do know is that Bush continued to read to the children and pose for the cameras long after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the National Military Command Center, the Pentagon, the White House, the Secret Service and Canada's Strategic Command were all aware that three jetliners had been hijacked. The President's entourage hung around a full fifty minutes after CNN broadcast the news of the first crash. Half an hour after the first plane hit, Bush told the children, "Hoo! These are great readers. Very impressive! Thank you all so very much for showing me your reading skills. I bet they practice, too. Don't you? Reading more than they watch TV? Anybody do that? Read more than you watch TV? [Hands go up] Oh that's great! Very good. Very important to practice! Thanks for having me. I'm very impressed."
White House staff members claimed that Bush remained with the children so as not to "upset" or "alarm" them. This is a truly bewildering excuse. If the country was under attack, Bush might be forgiven for upsetting a few schoolkids. If the President's life was in danger, then so was the life of every little child in that room. At the time, fighter jets had been dispatched to defend New York City. But according to one of the fighter pilots, it would have done no good to catch up to one of the hijacked planes before it landed in a murderous explosion at the next population center. The only person with the authority to order the plane to be shot down, noted the pilot, was the President, who was still reading to schoolchildren.
The panic motif runs through the rest of the President's actions that day. While the presidential motorcade did finally head for the airport, Bush is alleged to have spoken on the phone to Cheney and ordered all flights nationwide grounded. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta has also tried to take credit for the order, but according to Slate, this too is false, though "FAA officials had begged [the reporter] to maintain the fiction." In fact, according to USA Today, it was FAA administrator Ben Sliney who issued the order. Amazingly, Air Force One took off with no military protection. It remained unprotected in the sky for more than an hour, though Florida is filled with Air Force bases just minutes away with planes that are supposed to be on twenty-four-hour alert.
Bush's aides later offered, and retracted, the excuse that he spent the day flying around the country because of threats to Air Force One believed to have been received at the White House. What nobody has ever explained is this: If you think Air Force One is to be attacked, why go up in Air Force One?
Bush is a hollow man.
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