The Lessons Learned from 9/11

1. A Wide Angle Lens Can be Your Enemy:


A lovely remembrance at Ground Zero?


Or after 5 freakin' years all they've managed to put upis a temporary rinky-dink kid's wading pool that leaks?
(h/t to STOP George at Daily Kos)

2. An Extreme Close-up May Not Be Your Friend Either:


Don't tread on me!


Now if the Constitution had been there with the flag,we would have a real snapshot of the Bush Years.
(h/t to STOP George at Daily Kos)

3. Kids Say the Darndest Things!

SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) - Tyler Radkey and other second-graders at Emma E. Booker Elementary School didn't know what to think when an aide leaned in and whispered something to President Bush on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

"His face just started to turn red," said Tyler, now 13 and in seventh grade. "I thought, personally, he had to go to the bathroom."

For a puzzling seven minutes, the youngsters read aloud from the story "The Pet Goat" while the shaken president followed along in front of the class, trying to come to grips with what he had been told - that a second plane had just hit the World Trade Center and the nation was under terrorist attack.

"He looked like he was going to cry," said Natalia Jones-Pinkney, now 12.

And, so do adults:

"It was so surreal," Sarasota schools spokeswoman Sheila Weiss said. "Everyone in there wanted to get out and find out what was going on, but we couldn't leave."

(h/t to Attytood)

4. Destroy All Tapes (Didn't we learn this one with Nixon?)

MSNBC replayed their broadcast from the morning of September 11, 2001 yesterday in real time. I had the TV on in the background as I worked, just as I did five years ago. A couple of things stood out this time (without all the distracting frantic calls from friends and family in NYC and DC):

- Andrea Mitchell was already reporting the administration's spin that they had received "no specific threat."

- Bush's excuse that he sat there reading a book about a goat for seven or so minutes that morning because he didn't want to frighten the children was contradicted by the fact that he made his first announcement about the terrorist attacks to the American people RIGHT IN FRONT OF THOSE SAME KIDS. Actually, some were used as props standing behind him while the rest sat in front of him. Nothing scary for the kiddies there, huh? I had forgotten he had done that.

- Katie Couric and others constantly reassured the public that the President was on his way back to DC to take control, when we now know that he ran away in the opposite direction.