By: E&P Staff Sen. John Kerry, appearing today at the Unity convention of minority journalists in Washington, D.C., criticized President Bush's performance on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, in the most explicit terms yet. Now the Bush campaign has hit back, accusing him of launching "flailing attacks."
Referring to the moment, now immortalized in Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11," when Bush chose not to leave a group of schoolchildren for seven minutes after being notified of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center, Kerry told the journalists: "Had I been reading to children and had my top aide whispered in my ear that America is under attack, I would have told those kids very nicely and politely that the president of the United States has something that he needs to attend to...and I would have attended to it."
A Bush campaign spokesman, Steve Schmidt, had this official reaction to Kerry's comment this afternoon: "The indecision John Kerry has shown on the war on terror is reflected in his incoherent explanation of his vote against funding for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and his inability to take a stand on whether or not he thinks the removal of Saddam Hussein was the right decision. These flailing attacks against the president are the result of a candidate who doesn't know what he stands for."
Kerry drew a warm response for his speech, with about three out of four standing in applause at one point. He urged the audience to not operate "as partisans, but as truth-tellers."
President Bush will address the convention on Friday.
More than 6,000 journalists are attending the giant convention, which takes place every four years.
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