Bush: McCain learned lessons of 9/11
Posted: Tuesday, September 02, 2008 5:49 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
White House, Security
From NBC's Mark Murray
In his remarks tonight, President Bush will say that McCain "understands the lessons" of 9/11, according to excerpts the White House released. "We live in a dangerous world. And we need a president who understands the lessons of September 11, 2001: that to protect America, we must stay on the offense, stop attacks before they happen, and not wait to be hit again. The man we need is John McCain."
However, those words will spur political journalists to dig up this August 2008 piece from the New York Times: "Senator John McCain arrived late at his Senate office on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. 'This is war,' he murmured to his aides. The sound of scrambling fighter planes rattled the windows, sending a tremor of panic through the room.
"Within hours, Mr. McCain, the Vietnam War hero and famed straight talker of the 2000 Republican primary, had taken on a new role: the leading advocate of taking the American retaliation against Al Qaeda far beyond Afghanistan. In a marathon of television and radio appearances, Mr. McCain recited a short list of other countries said to support terrorism, invariably including Iraq, Iran and Syria."
"'There is a system out there or network, and that network is going to have to be attacked,' Mr. McCain said the next morning on ABC News. 'It isn't just Afghanistan,' he added, on MSNBC. 'I don't think if you got bin Laden tomorrow that the threat has disappeared,' he said on CBS, pointing toward other countries in the Middle East."
"Within a month he made clear his priority. 'Very obviously Iraq is the first country,' he declared on CNN. By Jan. 2, Mr. McCain was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: 'Next up, Baghdad!'"
"Now, as Mr. McCain prepares to accept the Republican presidential nomination, his response to the attacks of Sept. 11 opens a window onto how he might approach the gravest responsibilities of a potential commander in chief. Like many, he immediately recalibrated his assessment of the unseen risks to America's security. But he also began to suggest that he saw a new ''opportunity'' to deter other potential foes by punishing not only Al Qaeda but also Iraq."
More Bush excerpts
Also in his speech, Bush is expected to say: "John is an independent man who thinks for himself. He's not afraid to tell you when he disagrees... No matter what the issue, this man is honest and speaks straight from the heart."
"Last year, John McCain's independence and character helped change history. The Democrats had taken control of Congress and were threatening to cut off funds for our troops. In the face of calls for retreat, I ordered a surge of forces into Iraq. Many in Congress said it had no chance of working. Yet one Senator above all had faith in our troops and the importance of their mission - and that was John McCain. Some told him that his early and consistent call for more troops would put his Presidential campaign at risk. He told them he would rather lose an election than see his country lose a war. That is the kind of courage and vision we need in our next Commander-in-Chief."
