But on Tuesday, CBS News reported that the story was inaccurate, the result of a “misunderstanding” by staffers. The Associated Press reported that “administration officials said they now doubt whether there was actually a call made threatening the president’s plane, Air Force One.” Officials went on to say that they had not been able to find a record of such a call, though they maintained that they had been told of a telephone threat.
Presumably, political staffers were sensitive to any charges that Bush was somehow mishandling the crisis on that day by not appearing in Washington to reassure the American people. But the Secret Service was adamant that Bush stay away from the White House and, according to a Los Angeles Times poll, a vast majority of the American people backed the move. According to the poll, 85 percent thought Bush was right to “follow the advice of the Secret Service to stay away from Washington, D.C., and possible danger.”
As conservative writer Andrew Sullivan wrote Wednesday, “There was plenty of reason for the president to get to a secure communications base as soon as possible on September 11, and plenty of reason to avoid Washington during an extremely uncertain time. So why the lies? Were these people spinning at a time of grave national crisis? And I thought the Clinton era was over.”
Moreover, CBS News reported that radar evidence indicated that the American Airlines Flight 77 plane that hit the Pentagon was not a threat to the White House, despite the claims of administration officials to the contrary. “That is not the radar data that we have seen,” Fleischer said when asked about the radar data that conflicted with his account. “The plane was headed toward the White House.”
The nation is heading into a war that Bush described in his Thursday address as possibly including “covert operations, secret even in success.” One military official told the Washington Post Monday that because “this is the most information-intensive war you can imagine … We’re going to lie about things.”
Asked whether the Pentagon would ever knowingly disseminate false information, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld paraphrased Winston Churchill, who once said that “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” Then Rumsfeld tried to be reassuring. “I don’t recall that I’ve ever lied to the press. I don’t intend to. And it seems to me that there will not be reason for it.”
But when pressed for a specific policy, he said: “The policy is that we will not say a word about anything that will compromise sources or methods. We will not say a word that will in any way endanger anyone’s life by discussing operations.”
Now, reporters are left to wonder what’s still to come. And they’ve been regularly reminded that criticism is not appreciated, and will not be easily tolerated.
Fleischer added to the tension on Wednesday when asked about Maher’s statement that the U.S. has “been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly.”
Fleischer didn’t refrain from comment, as he frequently does when asked about such pop culture issues. Nor did he note that even President Bush had been critical of President Clinton’s 1998 retaliatory strike against Osama bin Laden through missile strikes — “When I take action, I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It’s going to be decisive,” Bush told four senators on Sept. 14, according to Newsweek.
No, Fleischer called Maher’s comments “a terrible thing to say, and it’s unfortunate.” His ominous follow-up remarks, that “Americans … need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is,” would seem to portend further strains in the relationship between the White House and even its loyal opposition as the nation moves toward war.
I got this here
Will
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