My comment that I thought George W. Bush was being treated a bit unfairly brought an amazing amount of argumentative e-mail…and from all sides. Pro-Bush folks were upset that I was minimizing the injustice being perpetrated on their guy while anti-Bush folks were upset that I thought it was possible to treat Bush unfairly. And as is often the case, a couple of both mistook predictions for wishful thinking on my part.
In any case, there's too much of this for me to answer individually, especially since I'm back battling a big deadline. I may not be posting much here for the next day or two, and I know I won't be able to respond to all the e-mail.
But before I get back to work, I have another prediction. I don't think Bush is going to be harmed, at least not in a real electoral sense, by what he did or didn't do before 9/11. When all the hearings and charges dissipate, the consensus will be that a lot of things could have been done — by Bush and Clinton and the FBI and the C.I.A. and many other folks — and we all wish they had been done. But no individual can really be held culpable for not doing them.
At the same time, I think Bush may be harmed by the inevitable discussions of what he did or didn't do on 9/11. As the story is told, Bush was on his way to visit a classroom when he was informed that a commercial airliner full of people had crashed into the World Trade Center. He supposedly watched a few seconds on TV, made a joke about "that's some bad pilot" (or words to that effect) and then went in and read to children. I think we're going to hear a lot about that, especially now that it's been established he'd been briefed that Osama's boys wanted to hijack planes and had been casing New York buildings. The fact that he apparently didn't "connect the dots" when that first plane hit is something we're going to hear a lot about…and at some point, he's going to have to give America a convincing explanation. Someone is also going to have to explain why it was that at 9:00 AM, neither Bush nor Condoleezza Rice knew there had been two hijackings even though the F.A.A. had known for almost forty minutes and NORAD for almost twenty. And Bush is really going to have to answer the charge that after Andrew Card informed him "America is under attack," he continued to read to children for at least five minutes instead of, for example, ordering all planes grounded as someone else had to do.
I'm not saying there aren't good explanations for all of this and perhaps some of the established "facts" in the timeline aren't as factual as we think. I just think this is going to become a major campaign issue…and all the current revelations about advance briefings and what Bush knew before 9/11 are just arming those who will charge that he was irresponsible to not act as soon as that first plane hit.