Extraordinary photographs. Made public yesterday by the National Archives but I was serving my blackout sentence.
Watching the television coverage in the vice president's office. He would soon be taken to the President's Emergency Operations Center, PEOC. (Everything has an acronym.)
Suit jacket buttoned, standing straight, arms straight down, hands open. In control of himself, not overwhelmed, in charge. President Bush would arrive at the command center about 7 pm. Contrast Cheney's body language with that of Mrs. Bush and especially Lynne Cheney.
Intent, concentrating.
Contrast with the body language of Secretary of State Rice.
The horror.
Shock.
Don't know where that is. Not PEOC, the chair back is different. That is the same tie but loosened. He is talking to someone here but has a bit of a glazed look.
Stunned. Red-faced. I wonder if anybody thought he could have a heart attack.
He does look a little teary-eyed there. Don't think he was, just weary with worry. Hope he wasn't.
Going to write something. Thinking, concentrating. Man, you put that birthmark on his head he'd be a dead ringer for Gorbachev in that picture.
Eyes wide shut. That has to be a prayer moment...Praying with a coffee cup in your hand? But the alternative is one camera click caught three people blinking at the same time. Whatever, Lynne Cheney needs to work on her body language. Not helpful.
These are moving photographs. The stress, the weight of decision-making, the emotion are palpable.
That is Richard Clark, counter-terrorism advisor, advising how his efforts had been comprehensive and sure. Cheney and Rice don't want to hear it. M.I.T. guy, Clarke. Just like Krugman and Yan Song and all those people. Thank you, M.I.T.
Not so good body language there.That is Mary Matalin covering her face in horror and Cheney, it looks like, about to tell her to KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF! At least that is how I would have reacted.
Okay, Bush arrives.The real Commander in Chief arrives at about 7 pm. Look at his body language. His shoulders are slightly slumped, he looks defeated. Someone, I forget who, a CIA guy, was with Bush on Air Force One's trip to nowhere that day and said he was briefing Bush and all of a sudden Bush went silent and gazed into nowhere and the seconds and then the minutes passed and then the CIA guy just left. It made the CIA guy very uncomfortable. Bush was overwhelmed and did not know what to do. Hell, I wouldn't have known what to do either!
Cheney conveying some information to Bush while Andrew Card--"What were we supposed to do?"-- talks to Secretary Rice in the background.
Cheney, done conveying his information. Bush, dejected, steps slightly away. Cheney gives him time to think, feels awkward, puts his tongue against the inside of his cheek. Bush is a beaten mother-fucker, man, a beaten mother-fucker."What you were supposed to do, Andrew..." Wonder what that was about.
Thinking, processing.
Watching the television coverage in PEOC.
Don't know where that is. Not PEOC, the chair back is different. That is the same tie but loosened. He is talking to someone here but has a bit of a glazed look.
In PEOC. He looks a little emotional there but probably not.
Overwhelmed with feeling.
Laura Bush is speaking. Cheney, coat buttoned, listening. Lynne Cheney, not listening.
He didn't just watch TV.
Rice looks better, couldn't look worse than in that previous photo.
Rice looks better. Cheney looks pensive.
Good picture of Powell. Good body language, studying, thinking, processing.
Bush: there and not there.
Bush went wooly in the knees. He couldn't help it, it was genetic.
Bush is dazed. Card looks a little like Hermann Goering, doesn't he?
Bush cannot handle this and steps away. Goering knows and looks at him, concerned.
Look how young Bush looks. Trim. Young, trim, doesn't know what to do. "I didn't want to be a war president." Yeah, well bucko, being Commander in Chief comes with being POTUS. COMMAND!
Deer-in-the-headlights.
Tense, chewing the inside of his jaw.
What should I do, Condi? I'm SCARED!
