This week, on September 11th, 2012, America was attacked. Not on the American continent but at our embassies in the Middle-east. Protesters breached the walls of our sovereign territory in Egypt, where they tore down our flag, and burned it to the ground. The same flag that we lowered to half staff to pay tribute to the fallen heroes of another September 11th. These protesters invaded our land chanting things like "we are all Osama." Meanwhile in Libya, protesters breached the walls of the Libyan embassy. They weren't focused on flags so much as finding Americans and murdering them. They dragged our ambassador through the streets, committing unspeakable acts to a man who was there to help them, to reach out to them diplomatically on behalf of the United States. Americans watched these events on the news around the world, fearing for the lives of our people trapped inside our own land. We saw our flags burn as news trickled out that an official had died.
These events are of course very different than those of the same day eleven years ago. The numbers, the scale, I will not attempt to say they are the same or should be treated the same. But they were both major national security events and they both involved attacks on our people and our way of life. One of the greatest differences between the two, however, was the reaction of our Presidents and the style of leadership they exhibited.
For a full timeline of the events of September 11th, click here.
For a brief summary, the first plane hit the World Trade Center at 8:46 am. The second hit at 9:03 AM, and at the same moment, NORAD was informed it had been hijacked. President Bush was informed the details of events during a school visit and was on the air addressing the nation within 26 minutes. He explained that terrorists had attacked our nation and called for a moment of silence for the victims. He assured the nation that they were in good hands.
Later that night, when the President finally made it back to Washington and had time to gather intelligence and prepare, he delivered powerful remarks to the nation. Here are a few excerpts from that and the full speech is embedded below.
"Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve," and "The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts...we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."
Now for the contrast. After the attacks on both the Libyan and Egyptian embassies, the only comments we had from the Obama administration came in the form of a few tweets from the Cairo embassy. You can find all of them compiled here. But to summarize, while protesters gathered they tweeted "the US embassy condemns religious incitement." They released a fuller statement condemning a video that was said to be responsible for the anger shown by the protesters. The statement went on to condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims Hours later, protesters scaled the walls, tore down and burned the flag, replacing it with a black Islamic flag. The embassy doubled down on it's first statement, condemning the inciters of the protest. Within hours reports came of much more violent protests in Libya and news trickled in of a state department officials death. Finally, Hillary issued a statement "condemning the violence in the strongest terms." Obviously seeing the weak position the Cairo embassy had taken via twitter, she also clarified that the video in question "was not justification" for the events. The Cairo embassy deleted their second tweet that doubled down on the condemnation of the video. Still no word from President Obama. (Mitt Romney also issued a statement which you've most likely already heard all about, but as this is a contrast between President Obama and President Bush, I won't address those)
After midnight, the first comments from the White House came from Obama spokesman Ben Labolt. However, instead of commenting on the events in the middle east, the attacks, violations of our sovereignty and the MURDER, he attacked Mitt Romney for his comments. 7 hours later, the second word from the White House came but it was just a confirmation that one of those murdered in Libya was ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Finally, at 10:42, 21 hours after our Egyptian embassy was invaded and about 13 hours after the confirmed death of a state department official, President Obama addressed the nation.
I won't spend too much time dissecting Obama's speech but I will say that it did not have the passion, the hope or the strength of Bush's speech. I did not feel confidence in our ability to bring the perpetrators to justice like I did on the evening of September 11th.
When our nation is attacked, whether it be the New York skyline or our territory overseas, we hope for leadership from our President. We hope for reassurance and above all, we hope to know that those we elect to oversee our protection are on top of things. From President Bush we received that reassurance within an hour of the first attack. He didn't have all the knowledge of the situation, in fact there were still hijacked planes in the air when he addressed the nation. President Obama waited and even had the gall to criticize Mitt Romney for speaking out when he chose not to. He even said "Governor Romney has the tendency to shoot first and aim later." Did it take about 22 hours for the President to "aim" before commenting on the murder of our citizens? He spoke out almost immediately at the death of Trayvon Martin. He reached out to Sandra Fluke with tremendous speed when she was insulted by a conservative commentator. But when our nation was attacked in perhaps the greatest national security attack in his term, he was silent. That silence is perhaps due to the fact that he was campaigning in Las Vegas and going on the radio to talk about Flo Rida and the Miami Dolphins. Whatever the reason though, the President did not show leadership at a time when it was sorely needed. But isn't that the story of Obama's first term? He hasn't shown leadership in dealing with congress, as we have found out in recent weeks in Bob Woodwards new book. He hasn't shown leadership as unemployment has stayed above 8% for over 40 straight months and he certainly hasn't shown leadership in adding over 5 trillion dollars to the deficit. Moral of the story: looking for leadership? Vote Romney.
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