Blogger for Horowitz website: Obama's response to Fort Hood shootings "far worse" than Bush's "Pet Goat" moment
November 07, 2009 1:44 pm ET by Media Matters staff
From a November 7 post by Paul Cooper at David Horowitz's NewsReal blog:
Will President Barack Obama be able to avoid negative attention for his initial reaction to the Fort Hood Massacre? His first speech after the killing of at least 13 soldiers on a US military base showed a complete lack of any presidential leadership. It may (and should) go down in history as far worse than the "Pet Goat" incident.
On September 11, 2001 President George W. Bush heard a plane had hit the World Trade Center when he was about to hear elementary kids read a book to him at a school in Florida. Bush had a whisper in his ear from Andrew Card about the plane while he was in front of a group of small children. At that point the complete picture of a full scale terrorist attack was not known. Bush knew something was happening, but he did not know how bad, and he did not want to frighten the kids in front of him.
The book the children read to him was called "The Pet Goat" and that incident has been used to attack Bush by the Left ever since. Some have tried to use it to say Bush was a poor leader. Many (those we now know as 9-11 Truthers) have even used the incident as "proof" that Bush knew 9-11 would happen.
After meeting with the children and getting more information, President Bush gave a short but powerful press conference to the country. It showed great leadership and clarity on what was going on. You can debate if he should have immediately ran out on the kids and then made his speech, but there is no debating the strength of his first public words on the incident.
[...]
While the world was watching and waiting for a strong President -- what they got were comments about how good some little conference was and shout outs to a buddy of the President. The media was reporting on a terrorist (though many are afraid to use that term) killing US soldiers on our own soil and they went to the President live, setting him up for one of those great Obama speech moments. But this is what we got as his first words:
"Let me first of all just thank Ken and the entire Department of the the Interior Staff for organizing just an extraordinary conference. Uh, I want to thank my cabinet members and senior administration officials who participated today. Uh, I hear that Dr. Joe "Medicine" Crow was around. So I want to give a shout out...My understanding is, is that you uh had an extremely productive conference."You have got to be kidding me! Those type of comments go on for two minutes. He ignores Ft. Hood while below his video feed, every cable news channel talks about a massacre and soldiers dead. When he finally gets to talking of Ft. Hood there is no sign of a President ready to respond to terrorism. As details scrolled on news feeders below him, his first words on the incident were:
"We don't yet know all the details at this moment. We will share them as we get them... We will make sure we get answers to every single question about this horrible incident... I hope all of you recognize the scope of this tragedy."President Obama then goes on to make closing comments about the conference he was at. He shows no grasp of "the scope of this tragedy."
Remember the 2am phone call commercial that Hillary Clinton's campaign put out that questioned Obama's readiness to lead in crisis? That ad was meant to scare Democrat voters about Obama's ability to lead. Well, the President's reaction to the Ft. Hood Massacre should scare us all.
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What scares the hell out of me, are people like you that think the way you, and the people that believe you.
Massive ignorance and the effects it may have on the populace. That's why said ignorance gets fought here all the time.
There was simply no better way to get fully briefed on the details other than by getting to a headquarters and by then tracking the unfolding crisis in real time.
It was dereliction of duty for Bush not to have done so.
Absolutely no way is Ft.Hood's tragedy comparable to the 9/11 attacks. Absolutely no way! It will never be!
The wingnuts are trying again to rewrite reality to suit their agenda. They will get no traction with this attack outside of their echo chamber. I think they dishonor the victims, their families, and the military by using their horror and grief to catalyze the lies as an attack on our President.
This seems an appropriate time to quote a line from Sarah Palin's resignation speech:
"In honor of the troops you need to stop making stuff up"
My blog did not compare Ft. Hood to 9-11 to say they were equal. Their commonality is that both events gave both Presidents their FIRST chance to respond to an act of terror.
Why are Cons so afraid/scared of everything but they praise Dick Cheney? Speaking of going up the down staircase..these people who write this stuff need real jobs.
I suggest to Congress to really sacre these dopes by doing the right thing and not even asking for their input.
Um, no. Proof that President Bush knew it would happen can be inferred from the fact that the Clinton administration clearly warned him about al Qaeda and the threat they posed. Further, in August, one of his daily briefings specifically cited the attack, and he waved it off, telling the briefer they had 'covered their butt' Nice try.
Further, you ignore the fact that Mr. Bush's 'strong speech' was given almost twelve hours after the events took place, and to a joint session of Congress. If you're going to hold up President Bush as a strong leader in time of crisis, I hope for your sake you never visit New Orleans.
They are trying to do the false equivalency nonsense again.
If Obama behaved as badly as, or worse than, Bush did, it doesn't pradon Bush for his behavior. Two wrongs don't make a right! They somehow mistakenly think that by slamming Obama, it somehow makes Bush look less inept. Even if Obama was inept, it wouldn't make Bush look less inept. But Obama wasn't incompetent here, or insincere, or lacking in the correct amount of empathy here.
Such scoundrels they are.
With no evidence, Horowitz and his followers believe the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, is a jihadist.
Feel free to permanently disregard the entire output of any mind that "thinks" like this. Stepping out of a room isn't scary.
Also, as much as the left has had a lot of fun with W's "pet goat moment" it would not gave gained prominence had he not blown the aftermath (IE, between "mission accomplished" and the surge). Virtually the entire country, including all but the farthest left (Churchill, Chomsky, Baraka) backed him up (while the Coulters almost immediately started to lob bombs leftward).
Fort Hood is more Columbine than 9-11, but it is a human tragedy nonetheless. As Commander in Chief, I expect the president to take this seriously from "moment 1", and in case of a lapse, to own up to it.
Please help us to better understand this by publishing "the other side of the story", as you generally do and very well.