Not a 'Bullhorn Moment'

"Gibson: [B]ut is there an argument between the president of the United States and the Secret Service -- 'I want to go home.' 'No you're not, Mr. President'?

"Bush: Yeah. Yeah.

"Gibson: And . . . and the Secret Service wins those arguments?

"Bush: Oh well, you know, it was not just the Secret Service, the vice president suggested, others suggested, that it's probably best to let things cool down for a while, till we get enough information to understand."

Bush was widely faulted for his initial reactions to the terrorist attacks. First, of course, was the seven minutes he spent frozen at the front of a Florida classroom after being told the nation was under attack. But even after that, Bush flew from one Air Force Base in Louisiana to another in Nebraska before finally heading back to the White House to reassure a terrified nation.

The 9/11 commission report left it unclear who exactly made the call to keep Bush away from the White House. After Lousiana, "[t]he next destination was discussed: once again the Secret Service recommended against returning to Washington, and the Vice President agreed. Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska was chosen because of its elaborate command and control facilities, and because it could accommodate overnight lodging for 50 persons."

Bush alluded to the real decisionmaker in his ABC interview. On CNN yesterday, Gordon Johndroe, who was an assistant press secretary at the time, makes it utterly clear who was giving the orders: "The Secret Service, and -- as well as the vice president were telling him it's not just safe yet to return to the White House. And so, the vice president suggested that he go to the Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska."

Cheney's Day

Faye Fiore and James Gerstenzang write in the Los Angeles Times: "Vice President Dick Cheney, in a morning speech at the Pentagon, took a swipe at Democrats calling for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. 'We have no intention of ignoring or appeasing history's latest gang of fanatics trying to murder their way to power,' Cheney said, quoting a 2002 speech by the president.

"The word 'appeasement' has carried an additional political charge in recent weeks, after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld compared critics of the Iraq war with politicians who sought to appease Hitler."

Here is the text of Cheney's speech. How clever of him to use Bush as cover.

Cheney Interview, Revisited

From a New York Post editorial : "TV interrogator Tim Russert's cudgeling of Vice President Dick Cheney Sunday seemed intended more to elicit a confession than to produce news.

"But Cheney clearly held his own - and used the opportunity to make a point Americans need to hold on to as the War on Terror proceeds."

That point, of course: That debate over Iraq is aiding our enemies and hurting our friends. (See yesterday's column .)

E.J. Dionne Jr. writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "Perhaps Vice President Cheney should quit his current job and work within a political system more to his liking, the kind in which those in charge can protect national security by telling everyone what not to say and what not to think. . . .

"If Cheney doesn't like 'the kind of debate that we've had in the United States,' is there any other 'kind,' short of a lock-step endorsement of all of Bush's choices, he'd endorse?"

Poll Watch

A new Gallup Poll taken after Bush's series of major speeches last week finds his approval rating down three points to 39 percent from three weeks ago.

Joseph Carroll writes for Gallup: "Bush's approval ratings have averaged 39% over the last six Gallup polls conducted since early July, fluctuating between 37% and 42%."

CNN reports: "The percentage of Americans who blame the Bush administration for the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington has risen from almost a third to almost half over the past four years, a CNN poll released Monday found.

"Asked whether they blame the Bush administration for the attacks, 45 percent said either a 'great deal' or a 'moderate amount,' up from 32 percent in a June 2002 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll."

Swing District Watch

Carl Hulse writes in the New York Times about the tone in Colorado's Seventh Congressional District, a swing district that is a bellwether in the battle for control of the House.

"[I]nterviews over the last three days here found Republicans, Democrats and independents all expressing degrees of skepticism about Mr. Bush's motives in delivering a set of high-profile speeches on terrorism and the war in Iraq two months before Election Day."

More on Wednesday's Speech

Investigative reporter and author Ron Suskind writes in Time about Bush's momentous speech on detainee policy last Wednesday: "What the President wouldn't say, especially in a political season, is that he and the rest of the government have learned quite a bit from their early errors. What is widely known inside the Administration is that once we caught our first decent-size fish -- Abu Zubaydah, in March 2002 -- we used him as an experiment in righteous brutality that in the end produced very little. His interrogation, according to those overseeing it, yielded little from threats and torture. He named countless targets inside the U.S. to stop the pain, all of them immaterial. Indeed, think back to the sudden slew of alerts in the spring and summer of 2002 about attacks on apartment buildings, banks, shopping malls and, of course, nuclear plants. . . .

"To establish what was gathered, Bush, in the East Room, did what has consistently landed him in trouble -- take creative liberties with classified information. . . . This is the sort of thing that has steadily eroded Bush's relationship with the intelligence community: presidential sins of omission, or emphasis, that would be clear only if you happened to know lots of classified information."

And Suskind suggest one reason the White House is so opposed to trying terrorists using an authentic legal process. "The problem is not really with classified information. Most of what these captives told us is already common knowledge or dated; the U.S. hasn't caught any truly significant players in two years. However, discovery in such a case would show that the President and Vice President were involved in overseeing their interrogations, according to senior intelligence officials. Subpoenas on how evidence was obtained and who authorized what practices would go right into the West Wing."

Tribunals Watch

R. Jeffrey Smith writes in The Washington Post: "The Bush administration has won concessions from key Senate Republicans in proposed legislation on standards for detainee treatment and the rules for military trials of terrorism suspects, although some disagreements persist between the lawmakers and the White House, Senate sources said yesterday. . . .

"The Senate bill for the first time includes language supporting the administration's position that detainee abuse can be prosecuted only if it, in effect, 'shocks the conscience.' Legal experts say that instead of setting an absolute standard for conduct, the bill's language would leave room for judges to weigh the urgency of the information extracted from detainees during rough interrogations.

"The revised Senate bill also would bar detainees held by the United States from bringing legal action against the government to challenge the legality of their detention or treatment. It would bar the collection of damages by detainees for violations of the Geneva Conventions, which set the minimum standards for wartime treatment."

Live Online

I'll be Live Online tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET. Send me your questions and comments .

Where's the Outrage?

Bush confidante and under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs Karen Hughes asks an interesting question in USA Today: Where's the outrage?

It's a question I often ask myself, but in other contexts.

Here's Hughes: "Five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, one essential ingredient is still lacking in our international response to terrorism: the concerted moral outrage of everyday citizens of every faith and country."

One possibility: maybe some people are torn between outrage over terrorism -- and outrage over Bush's response to terrorism.

Alternate History

Jonathan Alter writes in Newsweek with an alternate history: "Five years after 9/11, the world is surprisingly peaceful. President Bush's pragmatic and bipartisan leadership has kept the United States not just strong but unexpectedly popular across the globe."

AsLe Mondeturns

Dave Goldiner writes in the New York Daily News: "Five years ago, the French paper Le Monde proclaimed, 'We are all Americans.' Yesterday, its top editorial was headlined ' Bush's Mistakes ' and catalogued a litany of missteps that it said has made the world more dangerous.