Justin wrote: they dont have FOX news on the other side of the world. =(
only CNN and BBC.
A far better source for news is Google News. They compile news listings from all over the world. You get all 100 sides of every issue and then it is up to you to figure out what is true and what is crap.
During the Gulf War II, I read both American news and Arab news so I could get both sides of the issues. It is fairly clear that the American side was much more honest than the Arab side, but I know both sides, so I can make rational assumptions about what was really going on.
As for the 7 minutes Bush took to leave the classroom...
Do you REALLY believe that the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES is required to oversee EVERYTHING that goes on? First off, there are police and military agencies that do all kinds of things and none of them need to call the President to find out what they should do. In fact, in a disaster like 9/11, it is best to let local and state agencies do their thing without huge federal over sight. The President needs to make policy, not direct disaster relief.
Plus the President was told that the Vice President was coordinating efforts for Washington. I find it far more likely that the President was told that a command/communication center was being set-up in a near by classroom so that he could talk to the VP/military/whatever and that it would take 7 or so minutes to get it all setup.
We do know that the President running from the room screaming wouldn't have left a very good impression on the childern or the television viewers. People like the President of the USA don't get scared and run away. It was far better for him to wait for communications and calmly walk out of the room when they were ready.
As I remember it, the President left the room, went to another classroom and had a meeting with Washington, then came out and gave a press conference and left for Air Force One. There is very little the President could have done. The second plane had already hit and the military had been ordered by the VP to shoot down any remaining hi-jacked planes.
What where you doing on 9/11? When I was told about the first plane, I didn't think it was a terrorist attack, I figured it was an accident. We started watching on TV and saw the second plane hit live. As it did, I turned to my co-worker and said, "Bin Laden is a dead man." He said, "Yep, they can't ignore this one." If I had known that as a result of the terror attack, that Afganistan and Iraq would have been freed, I would have at least been less said. For months before 9/11 I wondered what could be done with Afganistan. I didn't like what was going on over there, but I felt that the US didn't really have any way of getting over there to stop it. Thanks to Bin Laden, both Afganistan and Iraq are now free....