September 11 retrospective: George W. Bush and enduring lies

Shrub Bush: Still lying after all these years

Via Eric Bohlert, this New York Times report reminds us that Cheney and Bush promoted a lie about their decisive decisiveness on 9/11, Newly Published Audio Provides Real-Time View of 9/11 Attacks by Jim Dwyer 09/07/2011:

In its 2004 report, the commission praised front-line aviation officials. But it then thoroughly dismantled the accounts of senior government officials, who in the weeks after Sept. 11, and for more than a year afterward, assured the public that fighter pilots had been in hot pursuit of the suicidal hijackers. During these chases, according to accounts from Vice President Dick Cheney, the F.A.A. and the Defense Department, the pilots were described as ready to carry out a wrenching order from President George W. Bush to shoot down airliners.

The commission discovered that little of that was true: of the four flights, military commanders had nine minutes’ notice on one before it flew into the World Trade Center, and did not learn the other three had been hijacked until after they had crashed. Military commanders, given an order outside the chain of command to shoot down hijacked airliners, did not pass it along to the fighter pilots, but instructed them instead to identify the tail numbers of any suspected rogue planes. That turned out to be a prudent call because by then, there were no longer hijackers in the air for them to shoot.

The newly published multimedia document spells out precisely how the recordings contradicted the accounts of the senior officials.

Bush repeated this whopper in his 9/11 interview on the National Geographic Channel. I blogged about that interview after it first aired. But I didn't notice a single article or blog commentary about it; I'm sure there were some. I not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved by that.

Tags: 9/11, george w bush