Our President Shows That He's No Giuliani

Ellis Henican: September 13, 2001

Where's Bush?

I know we're all rallying 'round the president now, and here I've been, rallying like everybody else. But the hours are passing. The body count is rising. The news is staying grim. The nation's premier city has suffered this unspeakable loss.

The question can't wait much longer. New York has a right to know.

"Where are you, Mr. President?"

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Mostly, George W. Bush has been keeping his head down, staying out of harm's way. He certainly hasn't shown his face around here.

And really, isn't it about time? It's been two full days now since the first hijacked airplane slammed into the first twin tower, the start of the bloodiest terror attack in history. But since that very moment, the leader of the world's one superpower has been - where?

Lingering for hours in the clouds. Nervously hopscotching across the country. From Florida to Louisiana to Nebraska. Unsure what direction to fly, while his aides bickered about where the president should land.

And that first stilted statement from the president was released on videotape.

Was Bush that frightened he'd flub the 'prompter read?

Do we have a president too nervous to work live?

George W. Bush is no Rudy Giuliani, that's for sure. Honestly, the comparison is getting hard to ignore.

Here we've been, groping our way through this thorny international crisis, and it's the confident-looking mayor - not the jittery president - who's managing to shine. I hate to pile on here. But certainly, Bush is missing a crucial opportunity to show he's really up to the big job.

And Rudy Giuliani, despite all his imperfections, has been terrific this week. He's reassured the nation, the same way he's reassured New York. With Rudy stomping through the cement dust, no one has had to ask: "Who's in charge here?"

He did this first of all by showing up. Then he kept showing up. At ground zero, wherever ground zero was.

He's been answering the questions that have to be answered - several times a day, every day. He's speaking, as he always does, without a Teleprompter or notes. He's the one - not the president - who's calmed the swirling waters, who's focused the dangerous search, who's made a nation believe that we will all wake up tomorrow and press on.

And Rudy's done it without the red-meat rhetoric of revenge. No Arab-bashing from him. He's remembered, "What we say today will change how we can live tomorrow." He's taken a breath and stayed calm.

"I know in every sense, the city is going to emerge stronger," he said yesterday afternoon at his temporary bunker, and I was prepared to believe him.

"New Yorkers should not feel alone," he said. "We have tremendous support. We have tremendous help. We have tremendous talent."

While Rudy Giuliani was busy getting soot dumped on his shoulders, George W. Bush was - wait, tell me again, where exactly was the president?

I don't want to use a word like "hiding." But what would be a better one?

It has been like this since Tuesday morning, when Bush first got the news in Sarasota, Fla., as he was about to read a story to Kay Daniels' second-grade class. Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, stepped into the room and whispered in the president's ear.

"The color drained from the president's face," said Sonya Ross of the Associated Press, the only print reporter to spend that whole depressing day with the president. "Bush looked at the children, at the cameras, at the children again. Card stood off to the side briefly, then left the room. Bush picked up a textbook in an attempt to follow the lesson, his concentration gone."

So what would Bush do? Where would he go? Straight to New York - right? - the scene of this terrible carnage. Showing the nation and world that he was personally in command.

Not quite.

If not New York, then Washington? The Pentagon had also been hit.

Not so quickly. He went first on a cross-country, airborne detour. Apparently, the president's security people and his political people couldn't agree.

"Come here," the political people urged from Washington.

"Stay away," the security people said.

"For nearly two hours we speculated about where we might be, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky," Sonya Ross would write later. "Finally, we touched down at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., apparently chosen at random."

Then it was on to Nebraska. Offutt Air Force Base, home to the U.S. Strategic Command.

Only then did the president finally return to Washington.

When he reaches Rudy's town is anybody's guess.