A Tear Falls, But President Holds Tightly to His Image (gag alert)

When Scott Pelley asks President Bush about his first visit to ground zero, three days after the attacks, he begins, "You had been briefed on ground zero," and even before he finishes the question, Mr. Bush is shaking his head.

"You couldn't brief anybody on ground zero," Mr. Bush says. "It was ghostly. It was like you were having a bad dream and you were walking through the dream." Speaking slowly, he is clearly haunted by those memories, and he seems moved and engaged. It's one of only two moments shown in this much-hyped exclusive interview when he does.

Mr. Pelley had two interviews with the president, the first a couple of weeks ago on Air Force One and another last week in the Oval Office. The president granted the interviews after he turned down similar requests from other news organizations, including The New York Times. The hourlong program shaped around them (to be shown on "60 Minutes II" tonight on CBS, just before the president is scheduled to speak live) is a typical magazine report chronicling the president's experience on Sept. 11 and in the days after, padded with interviews with others in the administration. Despite the president's sound bites, the report is similar to half a dozen others.

Substantively, the program is frustrating because the president and his aides stay relentlessly on message, that message being that Mr. Bush resolved to seek justice in the first minutes after learning of the attacks, even as he was reading to second-graders in a Florida classroom.

Mr. Bush says: "That we're at war. And that somebody had dared attack us, and we're going to do something about it."

With that unwavering message echoing through the hour, it's the sidelights that become fascinating: details of what happened behind the scenes that day; the colloquial language that is so calculated a part of the Bush image; the scene of the president weeping as Mr. Pelley interviews him on Air Force One, offering a glimpse behind the presidential persona that may be more revealing than he intended.

As the report reconstructs Sept. 11, weaving all the interviews together, it creates a visceral sense of how frantically the government was scrambling for information, both on Air Force One and in the White House bunker, where the vice president and others had been taken. Air-traffic controllers feared that as many as 11 planes might have been hijacked, and the president ordered military jets to shoot down hijacked planes if they had to. Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, was in the bunker, and she recalls that when the flight crashed in Pennsylvania, its passengers apparently attempting to take it back from the hijackers, "there was that horrible time when we wondered if Flight 93 had indeed been shot down by an American pilot."

Much of the reconstruction of what happened on Air Force One that day comes second-hand. The Secret Service decided it was too risky for the plane to return to Washington, to Mr. Bush's frustration. Mr. Pelley says, "At one point he was overheard saying, `The American people want to know where their dang president is.' " He doesn't say who overheard it.

But Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, happily becomes the source for two other colorful quotations. The president ordered Mr. Fleischer to take notes, so there would be a historical record. Mr. Pelley says that according to those notes, Mr. Bush told the vice president on the phone: "We're at war, Dick. We're going to find out who did this and" (less politely) kick their behinds.

When Mr. Bush decided to fly back to the White House late that afternoon, the language Mr. Fleischer quotes is so cartoonish that Mr. Pelley asks, "Come on, he really said, `I don't want a tin-horn terrorist to keep me out of Washington?' "

With so much language from the Old West, it's not surprising that some people worried Mr. Bush would shoot first and ask questions later. Mr. Pelley points out that some in the Pentagon were concerned that the president might immediately launch missiles toward Osama bin Laden, a tactic that had failed before. Mr. Bush seems amused and says offhandedly, "There's a lot of Nervous Nellies at the Pentagon anyway, a lot of people like to chatter."

His real message is that he's in charge. He says, "I knew exactly what had to be done, Scott, and that was to set a strategy to seek justice, find out who did it, hunt 'em down and bring them to justice."

The only time Mr. Pelley penetrates beyond that message is during one intense sequence on Air Force One. As they face each other, the president is hunched forward, and the close-up makes the lines is his face more visible than in the usual distant views. He recalls visiting relatives of those lost in the Word Trade Center, in those first days when the families still had hope. The president recalls that over and over they told him that their missing spouses or parents or children were tough and would find a way out of the rubble. "I had been briefed on the reality," Mr. Bush says. "I remember thinking the whole time that this is incredibly sad, because the loved ones won't come out."

Mr. Pelley then wonders if the president remembers a boy who asked him to sign a photograph of his father, a firefighter. Mr. Bush does: "I said, `Your Daddy won't believe that I was here, so you show him that autograph.' Just trying to provide a little hope."

And though the president looks straight into the camera with a gaze of utter control, he flicks a tear away from the side of his nose. The sight of a president crying is unusual and powerful enough to obscure his words. Didn't he just say he knew there was no hope? Mr. Bush and Mr. Pelley seem oblivious to the way he had given false hope to a child, a gesture that may have been understandable at the time but that is a weird thing to brag about later, wildly lacking self-awareness.

Near the end of the hour, when Mr. Pelley asks about urgent policy issues, the president's demeanor becomes stiff, even defensive. "After a year we still don't have Osama bin Laden," Mr. Pelley says, and Mr. Bush snaps at him, "How do you know that?" before backing off to say we don't know if he's dead or alive. About plans for attacking Iraq and resistance to those plans, the president reiterates, "The policy of the government is regime change." He seems determined not to make news in this interview.

As we see Mr. Pelley walking with Mr. Bush in the White House, his narration says, "The president told us that his job now is to keep reminding Americans that the nation is still at war." Despite its unexpected glimpses of emotion, this interview is a masterly example of that White House plan in action, as it insistently projects the image of a president going to war for justice.

Jeff Fager, executive producer; Bill Owens, David Schneider and Paul Gallagher, producers; Scott Pelley, correspondent.

Yes. Her son's first name was Christian, and he was a rookie fireman.

I really am sorry for her loss, because her son sounds like a wonderful person.

She, however, has been corrupted by the thought that she must BLAME someone here in the USA. It is the TERRORISTS who did this, not Guiliani, or Pataki, or Bush, or the building codes. It is the TERRORISTS who killed her son.

Yeah I know and DESPITE that, the American people still favor going after Iraq and support our President. The networks and the liberal press can go to h*ll. I hope their ratings continue to tank.

I'm sorry for her loss also of a beloved son, but she sounds very bitter. I've rumblings about the radios not working at WTC. BUt it is an absolute miracle that 3000 people were killed that morning in NYC. The death toll could have been much, much higher. I do not plan on watching network TV this evening, except for the interview of President Bush on CBS. I really wish the TV channels would have just rebroadcast their programming from a year ago, interspersed with the memorials and President Bush's speech.

It should be no suprise that the media and dim-o-socialists (joined at the brain)are taking the position favored by Saddam. Just as they took the positions favored by Stalin, Breshnev,Castro, et al.

They are simply continuing to operate under the philosophy that the "enemy (the terrorists) of my enemy (Bush) is my friend"

I have to applaud Miss Marple! If I had any booze in the house, I'd be having a drink myself! As cynical as I am about the media, even I did not think they would trash him today of all days. I wish a million people would email Jennings!

The President is also giving a speech to the nation tonight, right after the CBS interview. Keep your TV on long enough to hear him, OK? :-)

Just wait for tonight.....I think it's CBS, at the end of their "program" is going to have a gabfest by their talking heads (Chung, Brown, BABa, etc.) about HOW 9-11 affected THEIR year - I heard RUSH talking about this during my walk. Want to see NARCISSISTS in action? - just watch that!
I'll be here on FR, thank you!!!!!!!!!!

And, tonight I think I'll will join you in a drink, Miss Marple....(I don't drink much anymore - allergies)....but tonight my husband and I will toast our FINE MEN AND WOMEN in the ARMED SERVICES and our GROWN-UP ADMINISTRATION!!! Hey, maybe everyone on the Dose should raise a toast at a pre-determined time....where's Rintense...????? I'll give her that idea.

Thanks for the heads up! I have to work, but I did put a tape in to tape the interview, and I made it run longer, so I should get the speech taped also.

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