Actually, that's what I'd like to know. Bush could easily have emoted to the Nation his sorrow that there just wasn't time, after the mutiny onboard commenced, to rescind the order to shoot down the plane. The entire Nation would have deeply sympathized with Bush's anguish over the matter. People would have commended the administration for its willingness to make hard but necessary choices in defending the country against the apparently-pending atrocity. Pundits would have soberly commented on the fact that the shoot-down put the terrorists of the world on notice that the United States was willing and able to take whatever actions were necessary to foil their evil schemes. And it would, in fact, have made it quite clear to the terror lords that the US had no intention of playing the game by European rules.