[Lanny_MacDonald]

Originally Posted by Azure

Of course you've worked in the Secret Service and know everything that went on that day. Every flight plan, seating arrangement, snipers, close protection guards, transportation, where Bush was supposed to eat, get to a plane, where Air Force One was, if it was refueled and so on.

I do work with an ex-secret service agent, who was assigned to President Clinton, prior to Monica-gate, and then to the Gore after the break of that story, and I have had opportunity to interface with this office and they plan for every possible scenario where ever the President travels. There are multiple routes, to and from, where the President is visiting. There is a hospital on stand-by with a dedicated surgical team, pre-cleared through one of the most extensive background checks known to man, in the event of a medical issue for the President. There are contingencies that all those around the President are well aware of and have practiced a thousand times so they become second nature. They are schooled, in the event of an incident, to have the President moved to a pre-determined secure location immediately. This is how the Secret Service protects the President, and when Bush was allowed to sit there for those seven minutes it raised of eye brows in that community.

Here's a question for you neo-con supporting fellas. Why did Bush go on a several hour flight when he was less than 30 miles from CENTCOM command at McDill airforce base in Tampa? That is one of the most secure sites in the United States, and it was 30 minutes away by car, or a couple minutes by Airforce One, why the hopscotching around the country?

Grasping this straw is pathetic. Any President, in that situation would have done the same thing. Had it been a democrat, nobody would be complaining.

Actually, you're wrong, and full of **** again. It has been proven, time-and-time again, that if a Democrat had done the same thing he would have been roasted alive by the media and the Republicans. It would have marked the President as indecisive and uncaring. FoxNews and Clear Channel would have publicly crucified the President. There have been too many instances where those particular bodies have been defending Bush for sitting there, and then when the question was spun around and the name "Clinton" was put in that classroom seat, the speaker falls on his own sword. The lack of response (dead air) or the "well that would be different" tells you exactly what would have happened. A Democrat got burned at the stake for getting head in the Oval office, imagine what the response would have been if he sat there when the nation was under attack?

Your "hatred" for Bush is obvious. Get a frickin' clue. 7 min is not a long time.

More bull****. 7 minutes in today's world is a very long time. An F15 Eagle can fly from Calgary to Leduc in that time. A nuclear missile takes 45 minutes to travel from the other side of the planet to strike a target, so that 7 minutes means the weapon could have travelled 1/6th of it flight plan (or over 4,000 miles). Thinking of Electronical warfare, Yahoo was hacked in less than 7 minutes. In a world where the complete data contained at the library of congress can be bounced off a satellite in a few seconds (massive bandwidth), where weapons can be controlled from the other side of the world, and where decisions have instantaneous results, 7 minutes can be an eternity. Having the commander and chief of the country sitting in a classroom for 7 minutes while his country is under attack is in-excusable. If Harper or Chretien did the same thing, Canadians would be some ****ed.