Bush's Monica Moment

Yes, it has been a year since memoryhole posted video documentation of how Bush reacted (or failed to react) to the news of the 9/11 attacks. In what is often referred to as the "first pass of history," however, the country is only now beginning to fit the facts of that day, and the subsequent record of Presidential words versus actions, into more coherent patterns.

As I understand it, one of the scenes in Farenheit 9/11 involves the President continuing to sit through a classroom reading presentation after having been informed of the terror attacks. With the tendency to get caught up in partisanship, it's easy to just toss in Bush's hesitance that morning with the long list of failures over the past three years. If you actually watch the five minute video, however, you can't help but marvel at his inaction. Very few pieces of documentation reveal how profound a gap truly exists between the President's words and his actions.

In a piece today in The Atlantic Online, Jack Beatty weaves elements of the current Clinton tour, Moore's movie release, and the 9/11 Commission's reconstruction of the terror attacks to conceptualize a truer historical and characterological snapshot of Bush's 9/11 morning. Calling the President's lack of reaction Bush's "Monica moment," the author sees Bush's failure to respond and his subsequent covering up as another example of moral failure. In contrast to Clinton, however, Bush's weakness reflects "a fundamental incapacity to execute his job."

Large version:

9/11 classroom video (QuickTime, 12.5 MB) - The Memory Hole

Small version:

9/11 classroom video (QuickTime, 12.5 MB) - The Memory Hole

(video links: brainthink.com)
(image: www.9-11.co.uk/)