No, seriously.
The other day on the radio, I heard some people chewing over Dick and George, bitch-slapping them for everything from lying about John McCain's war record to lying about Bush's debate wire.
Well, that's all true, but I had to differ with them when one of them mentioned Cheney's calling up the Air Force on September 11th, 2001, ordering them to scramble fighter planes to shoot down the fourth hijacked plane (not yet aware that it had already crashed). This, the indignant person declared, was somethinghe had no authority to do.
Well, yes, I expect that's correct, but given the circumstances it was surely the right thing to do. And (again, given the circumstances) the Air Force officers and pilots who carried out that illegal order also did the right thing. I think it's very cheap and shabby to call Cheney a megalomaniac or a usurper for having taken such a decision upon himself in those confused hours.
Of course, the question of why those hours were so damned confused, and why nobody, civilian or military, seemed to have a clue what to do, is another matter.
Seems to me that the biggest lesson of September 11th is that the people at the top should be holding what the nuclear industry calls "unexpected event" drills.
I'm picturing a Secret Service detail driving onto an airbase, accompanied by a WHite House typist with a sticker scrawled "President" on his lapel. The bodyguards commandeer a plane and convey the pretend President to the Secure Undisclosed Location, while the NSA proves that they can stay in touch with the plane, transmitting updates on the simulated crisis, without giving away the President's location.
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