the puzzling thing is not whether something COULD have been done. the puzzling thing is that it appears there was no EFFORT to do anything. bush sits in a classroom for nearly ten minutes, cheney's whereabouts were unknown, bush was being sought to authorize a shootdown order but was unavailable; he flies off in air force one and is unavailable for the rest of the day; when asked they have some weird story about a shootdown order that later on it turns out the story was largely cooked up. I know, I know, they were worried about a threat against him and what have you but would FDR have done that, fly around all day and leave the country hanging? JFK? Reagan? Hell no.

this wasn't just a failure of leadership and if you read that august briefing, it really isn't that vague. "Specific threats against buildings in new york" -- I believe that language appears more or less verbatim. To read that in a PDB and then witness the WTC attack hardly a month later and have it not even occur to you that it's a terrorist attack -- that dog just doesn't hunt.

the puzzling thing is not whether something COULD have been done. the puzzling thing is that it appears there was no EFFORT to do anything. bush sits in a classroom for nearly ten minutes, cheney's whereabouts were unknown, bush was being sought to authorize a shootdown order but was unavailable; he flies off in air force one and is unavailable for the rest of the day; when asked they have some weird story about a shootdown order that later on it turns out the story was largely cooked up. I know, I know, they were worried about a threat against him and what have you but would FDR have done that, fly around all day and leave the country hanging? JFK? Reagan? Hell no.

this wasn't just a failure of leadership and if you read that august briefing, it really isn't that vague. "Specific threats against buildings in new york" -- I believe that language appears more or less verbatim. To read that in a PDB and then witness the WTC attack hardly a month later and have it not even occur to you that it's a terrorist attack -- that dog just doesn't hunt.


For one, what would you have had him do?  The news of the first crash happened right before he entered the classroom.  At the time, it was thought that it was simply an accident.  They suspected there was another hijacked plane, but it was impossible to confirm.  When he was told about the second crash (the famous shot we have all seen on TV), he told Chief of Staff Andrew Card to find out as much as he could and he would wrap the class as soon as possible.  He left the class 7 minutes later, and was immediately briefed by his advisors as to what was known.

The problems with communication with Air Force One has been covered many times in the last 4 years.  It was a simply failure in a critical system that did not have a back-up.  It could have been fixed in less then 20 minutes, but they were afraid to land to get it fixed.

And why were they afraid to land?  Because of the assasination of Ahmed Shah Massoud.

Ahmed Shah Massoud was the leader of the Northern Alliance.  That is the group that the Taliban had pushed out of power in Afganistan the year before.  On September 9, Ahmed Shah Massoud was assasinated by 2 terrorists posing as a news crew.  Shortly after a scheduled interview began, a bomb exploded in the camera.  This assasination was planned and conducted by Osama Bin-Laudin.  The "news crew" were Al-Queda trained operatives, and the attack was done at the request of the Taliban Government.

And remember, there were other flights that were not accounted for.  It was suspected that one or more flights could have been hovering around suspected landing sites for Air Force One (Andrews AFB, Washington International), where they could do another attack and take out the President and several senior advisors.

And remember, there was ample proof about Pearl Harbor before it happened.  In fact, FDR had read the declaration of war before the Japanese Ambassador did.  FDR had it in his hand at 9am, 4 hours before the attack took place.  This was because of our ability to break both the Japanese Naval Code and the Japanese Diplomatic Code.  In fact, many people have questioned for decades why none of the aircraft carriers were in Pearl Harbor the morning of the attack. 

In fact, the USS Enterprise and USS Lexington were both on missions to strengthen Midway and Wake islands.  Because of earlier intercepts, it was known that both would be primary Japanese targets.  The USS Saratoga was in San Diego, receiving a full compliment of aircraft to be ferried to Hawaii.

Most military historians accept the fact that FDR allowed the attack on December 7th to take place, knowing it was the only way that America would accept being drawn into yet another World War.  Without an attack of this magnitude, most Americans would have insisted on the maintaining of the position of Neutrality.  That is why the Aircraft Carriers were all on other missions, keeping them out of harms way.  In the weeks before the attack, none of them had spent more then 24 hours in port and never more then one at a time.

And as for a shootdown order, would you have been willing to give one?  And more important, if you were an Air Force Pilot, would you have been able to do it?  I have seen several interviews of pilots since then, and every one has said that they doubted if they would have been able to pull the trigger on a civilian airliner, knowing that they would be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians.

Watching the smoking WTC towers, hell yes I could have given a shootdown order, knowing it was a choice between the lives on the plane and the lives on the plane PLUS the lives of the place they struck? I thought having to make choices like that were what being a war leader is all about, and something like that is, frankly, a no-brainer. (the other side of it, whether such a thing might have led to an accidental shoot-down, is a different question, they say at the end of United 93 that the military commanders didn't pass the order on to the pilots and that to me is understandable.)

Anyway, we're arguing a counterfactual again. there's no way of knowing for sure whether a different administration could have done something on 9.11; I rather think they could have, a more intelligent and competent leader would have ascertained more quickly that something serious might have been happening, the way the reporters at CNN managed to. You think bush did as well as can be expected, which is fine. I also think a different leader might have had the courage to say, no, the people need their president right now and I will not fly around in radio silence all day long while the nation falls apart with panic. To me I think to expect less is to expect too little of our leaders, but we can agree to disagree.

Don't forget, this happens in a context too. bush wasn't competent for 911 and then suddenly became incompetent in iraq and in his response to Katrina. They all demonstrate a pattern of, at best lackluster leadership in my book. After 911 I wasn't surprised to see him fumble iraq and Katrina too. and, I might add, in very similar ways.

Watching the smoking WTC towers, hell yes I could have given a shootdown order, knowing it was a choice between the lives on the plane and the lives on the plane PLUS the lives of the place they struck?


As the old saying goes, "Hindsight is 20/20".  That is why I do not get involved in bashing people with facts that were not available at the time.


Anyway, we're arguing a counterfactual again. there's no way of knowing for sure whether a different administration could have done something on 9.11; I rather think they could have, a more intelligent and competent leader would have ascertained more quickly that something serious might have been happening, the way the reporters at CNN managed to. You think bush did as well as can be expected, which is fine. I also think a different leader might have had the courage to say, no, the people need their president right now and I will not fly around in radio silence all day long while the nation falls apart with panic. To me I think to expect less is to expect too little of our leaders, but we can agree to disagree.

Don't forget, this happens in a context too. bush wasn't competent for 911 and then suddenly became incompetent in iraq and in his response to Katrina. They all demonstrate a pattern of, at best lackluster leadership in my book. After 911 I wasn't surprised to see him fumble iraq and Katrina too. and, I might add, in very similar ways.


I like how you are the one that brought up the other leaders in the first place.  Then you state that it is not really productive, then go ahead and do it again.

In a similar way to "people get the leader they deserve", it can also be stated that "People get the leader they expect".  To see an example of that, let's look at Abraham Lincoln.

Of course he is now a martyr.  But at the time, he was blamed for every ill in the nation, including the Civil War itself.  Some pople saw a kind and gentle leader thrust into a war he did not want.  Others saw an autocratic dictator, who would break the Constitution at will in order to get his way.

And which one is right?  Both of them.  And it is the same with any form of government.  Every form has things in it's favor, even Communism and a Dictatorship.  That does not make them any better, just different.

You have to understand how I approach "discussions" in here.  For the most part, I do not try to convert people to my belief, or my point of view.  In often, many times I actually argue against my personal beliefs, in support of what I think is the best for the common good.

Mostly I work in here as the ultimate cynic, and as a dispensor of information.  A good example of this is something I quoted earlier, the "August 6th Memo".  Now we have all heard of it.  And we have all heard the politicians blabber on and on about it, acting like it was a "smoking gun".  However, how many of us have ever actually read it?  I doubt that more then 20% of us have ever read it before, simply accepting what others tell them the concept was (in their own slanted viewpoint).

I largely come in here with no real viewpoint.  Other then a few key issues (discrimination, racism, genocide), I rarely ever get truely passionate about things I say in here.  Mostly I act as "devil's advocate", and try to provide information so people can look at things from the other side.  I do not say "this is right" or "this is wrong", but I do say "but you are missing this" or "that is not quite right, you can find more information here".

You expect President Bush to be incompitant, and to screw everything up.  Because your preconceived belief is that he is a frack-up, everything he says or does is a frack-up.  Myself, I simply see a President.  All our Presidents have been men (people) like any others.  They make good and bad decisions.  I only hope that they make more good then bad decisions, and that the do not repeat bad decisions.

And like I have challenged in here before, nobody who belongs to the "Bash Bush" cam ever think she does anything good.  Even when it is pointed out he is fighting his own party on immigration, people bash him because he will not go as far as they think he should go.  You already put him in a no-win situation, so it is useless to even bother to bring it up unless you want to have a large "Hate Bush Fest".  That is largely nothing but mental-masturbation for the Left-Wing.  And to be fair, I thought a lot of the "Bash Clinton" crap from 8 years ago was nothing but mental-masturbation by the Right Wing.

1. the comparison to abraham lincoln is interesting but not particularly instructive. he and bush are different in more ways than they're the same.

2. i wasn't saying that it was counterproductive to bring in other leaders. i was saying that Bush was in office at the time and we'll never see another leader in office have to make the same decisions in the same circumstance, so we'll never know objectively whether what he did was the best we could reasonably expect or not. I'm just saying I don't think it was. That's my sense.

3. the funny thing about bush-bashing is that after the 2000 election I was upset for a time, but I had mostly made my peace with bush until 9/11 happened and I had this strong impression that it happened because of his incompetence. But the bush-bash factor isn't nearly as pronounced as you say. He had something like 90 percent approval after 9/11. somehow he frittered that away but most people DIDN'T react with, oh, well, he's bush, therefore he sucks.

4. hindsight -- all the facts I'm talking about WERE known at the time. that's the point.

5. you're not nearly as objective as you claim. You have a pretty pronounced political bias. That's okay, we all do, but it's disingenuous to pretend you don't.

You expect President Bush to be incompitant, and to screw everything up.  Because your preconceived belief is that he is a frack-up, everything he says or does is a frack-up.  Myself, I simply see a President.  All our Presidents have been men (people) like any others.  They make good and bad decisions.  I only hope that they make more good then bad decisions, and that the do not repeat bad decisions.


I used to think the Bush Administration was incompetent, but that implies they are trying to the right thing and not succeeding. Far from incompetent, the Bushies are malicious and corrupt. They do not care how many people suffer and die because of their policies. They have no intention of balancing the budget.  Their goal is to destroy the government because the government represents public power. The Bushies want all power in the hands of corporations where all that matters is who has the most money. They lie. They know they lie. They know we know they lie. To them, it is a show of power. "What are you gonna do about it, pal, huh?" The reason they did not get a warrant for wiretaps is to show us all how they will do exactly what they want when they want. They don't obey laws, they ARE the law! Got it?

Lewis lapham says politicians today, typically they  love to be in power but hate to govern. Bush et al are in office not to govern the country but to enact an agenda, which is why when something comes up that requires them to actually do something on an ad hoc basis, they're caught flatfooted. Because they're simply not in the business of running the country and addressing any problems that might come up but instead are there expressly to enact a corporate-conservative agenda.

So can anyone think of another tv show where shortly after airing, reality frighteningly imitated it?
I KNOW that All in the Familiy must have done it.  I think 24 might end up doing it.

i believe china syndrome came out before three mile island happened, but like right before, a couple months.

er, and, um... return from witch mountain came out a year before china syndrome. it's got lots of nuclear-plant meltdown stuff in it.

http://kimrichards.net/Kim/vidcaps/RFWM/thumbs/TN_gc-ReturnFromWitchMountain-562.jpg

it's all going in my book.

er, and, um... return from witch mountain came out a year before china syndrome. it's got lots of nuclear-plant meltdown stuff in it.

it's all going in my book.

I would say you really need a hobby, but evidently you have one. and it's taken over every aspect of your life.

pfft. poo poo on you, doodoo head.

jean baudrillard wrote about it. it was my grad school thing.

"In the world of Jean Baudrillard the viewer of a film becomes the screen as an effect of the screen itself. The driver of a car becomes an effect of the car. Objects signify in order to manipulate and overpower subjects. Signification creates a world beyond the control of those who, so to speak, bathe in its waters. "Harrisburg, Watergate, and NETWORK form the trilogy of THE CHINA SYNDROME -- an inextricable trilogy in which we cannot tell which is the effect or the symptom of the others: is the ideological argument (the Watergate effect) only the symptom of the nuclear (the Harrisburg effect) or the informational model (the NETWORK effect)? -- is the real (Harrisburg) only the symptom of the imaginary (NETWORK, THE CHINA SYNDROME) or vice versa? Marvellous indistinguishability, ideal constellation of simulation."4 The world of simulation precedes the real, and thus history, in a paradoxical and undialectical twist, has already been written. It is as if the future has overpowered the present, rendering all human activity, praxis, into an overwhelming and oppressive pattern of predictability."

all very heady but the basic question is, how do you apprehend a real-life event when it happens as a sequel to a fictional one? does that make it less "real", particularly when the real event is conveyed to most of us through t.v. anyway?

Lewis lapham says politicians today, typically they  love to be in power but hate to govern. Bush et al are in office not to govern the country but to enact an agenda, which is why when something comes up that requires them to actually do something on an ad hoc basis, they're caught flatfooted. Because they're simply not in the business of running the country and addressing any problems that might come up but instead are there expressly to enact a corporate-conservative agenda.

Lewis Lapham is the most astute political commentator alive today.

Lewis Lapham is the most astute political commentator alive today.
He's awesome. He also has a complex writing style which is rare these days with all these Raymond carver dittoheads running around.

He stepped down as harpers editor -- i'm a huge harpers nerd -- and I was afraid that the bottom would fall out of it. but it's still pretty cool, it seems a little edgier. Sorta like what happened with, er, mad magazine.

Lew's going in my book too.

pfft. poo poo on you, doodoo head.

jean baudrillard wrote about it. it was my grad school thing.

"In the world of Jean Baudrillard the viewer of a film becomes the screen as an effect of the screen itself. The driver of a car becomes an effect of the car. Objects signify in order to manipulate and overpower subjects. Signification creates a world beyond the control of those who, so to speak, bathe in its waters. "Harrisburg, Watergate, and NETWORK form the trilogy of THE CHINA SYNDROME -- an inextricable trilogy in which we cannot tell which is the effect or the symptom of the others: is the ideological argument (the Watergate effect) only the symptom of the nuclear (the Harrisburg effect) or the informational model (the NETWORK effect)? -- is the real (Harrisburg) only the symptom of the imaginary (NETWORK, THE CHINA SYNDROME) or vice versa? Marvellous indistinguishability, ideal constellation of simulation."4 The world of simulation precedes the real, and thus history, in a paradoxical and undialectical twist, has already been written. It is as if the future has overpowered the present, rendering all human activity, praxis, into an overwhelming and oppressive pattern of predictability."

all very heady but the basic question is, how do you apprehend a real-life event when it happens as a sequel to a fictional one? does that make it less "real", particularly when the real event is conveyed to most of us through t.v. anyway?


THAT's what I meant to say...I"m so glad you're around to translate for me.
Be my ghost writer.

I like that you chose the word sequel.
I believe that if something happens and you say, "that's exactly what happened in "Red Dawn"!"  it minimizes the impact of the event...and this is a cause and an effect of the de-sensitisation caused by ficiton these days..
(mike, is that what i meant to say?)

remember when 9.11 happened and a lot of people who were THERE said it looked like a movie. it was like this big 3-d blockbuster, happening right in front of them. that's the spookiest part of it, when you can't process something as an eyewitness and it looks all movified because that's how deeply that paradigm's been dug into our psyche.

remember when 9.11 happened and a lot of people who were THERE said it looked like a movie. it was like this big 3-d blockbuster, happening right in front of them. that's the spookiest part of it, when you can't process something as an eyewitness and it looks all movified because that's how deeply that paradigm's been dug into our psyche.

Wasn't it...Just like Independence Day- that' sthe comment I heard.

this is scary- i feel my mind's been violated.

and not in a good way

this is scary- i feel my mind's been violated.

and not in a good way
just like in scanners!

just like in scanners!


so, a movie for everything.  I"m gong to look for movies that depict things that have happened to me.

well, look at us on this board. we've all become movie or t.v. characters. with the occasional rock star thrown in. the movie-reality bleedthrough effect! it's everywhere.

well, look at us on this board. we've all become movie or t.v. characters. with the occasional rock star thrown in. the movie-reality bleedthrough effect! it's everywhere.


i have to go take a 'which famous person are you ' personlaity quiz now.

Of course, they are not the only ones to predict something like this.  In 1994, Ton Clancy released Debt Of Honor,

And while we're on the subject, Dale Brown's Storming Heaven featured similar methodologies - with an additional plot point that the bad guys financed it by trading options against the companies that owned the airplanes used and the assets on the ground that were hit.

Meanwhile, back in the "real" world, the SEC "investigated" and declared that the huge options trades placed against certain companies in the days before the Really Bad Day were legit.  And there's been silence ever since.  Suffice it to say that I'm skeptical about what's been revealed publicly.  Suffice it also to say that I hope the real investigation resulted in the very quiet disappearance of whoever was behind some of those trades.

He's awesome. He also has a complex writing style which is rare these days with all these Raymond carver dittoheads running around.

He stepped down as harpers editor -- i'm a huge harpers nerd -- and I was afraid that the bottom would fall out of it. but it's still pretty cool, it seems a little edgier. Sorta like what happened with, er, mad magazine.

Lew's going in my book too.


I love Harper's, but I haven't bought it in a while. I don't know anything about the new guy, Roger Hodge, but Lapham is staying on as "editor emeritus," and Hodge said he would keep the same tone.  I'm going to pick up the new issue for sure. If Harper's got turned over to some little neocon twit (ala Peter Beinart of the New Republican, er, New Republic) I would just screeeeam!!!
Lew might be the only journalist I would call the true heir to Geroge Orwell. Yeah, Christopher Hitchens thinks he is, but Hitchens is a mean-azz rightwing drunken sot who doesn't deserve to be in the same room as the name George Orwell.

I love Harper's, but I haven't bought it in a while. I don't know anything about the new guy, Roger Hodge, but Lapham is staying on as "editor emeritus," and Hodge said he would keep the same tone.  I'm going to pick up the new issue for sure. If Harper's got turned over to some little neocon twit (ala Peter Beinart of the New Republican, er, New Republic) I would just screeeeam!!!
Lew might be the only journalist I would call the true heir to Geroge Orwell. Yeah, Christopher Hitchens thinks he is, but Hitchens is a mean-azz rightwing drunken sot who doesn't deserve to be in the same room as the name George Orwell.
yeah. have you heard about what's going on at, god, is it village voice, or wired? i think it's village voice, wired just ran that NSA leak, which kicks ass. at village voice some new twit has come on board, they've cut a lot of their staff, at meetings he gets really defensive and berates everybody, do you know the story behind that?

i think they were saying lapham was gonna keep writing the notebook every other month, but don't quote me. harpers this month is pretty wild, the notebook's about death threats against the president throughout history, and there's this art spiegelman piece about the danish anti-islamic cartoons.

So can anyone think of another tv show where shortly after airing, reality frighteningly imitated it?
I KNOW that All in the Familiy must have done it.  I think 24 might end up doing it.


Sure, such things have happened all the time.

The China Syndrome  (Three Mile Island)
The Seige  (major terrorist attacks in NYC)
V for Vendetta  (Bombing of London subways and busses, filmed 3 weeks before real bombings)
Notorious  (Uranium smuggled for a bomb, filmed months before Hiroshima)
Foul Play  (Attempted assasination of the Pope)
Armageddon  (WTC struck, collapses after it burns)
Major League (Predicted the Cleveland Indians would pull out of their long slump)
Things To Come (an H.G. Wells book(1933)/movie (1936).  Predicts World War II, atomic weapons, intercontinental rockets and bombers)