The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank recounts how George W. Bush’s memory of an event after Sept. 11 appears to keep changing:
Will the “guy” from Ground Zero please identify himself? Bush has had some
difficulty with his recollection, used to finish almost every speech about
his moment on Sept. 14, 2001, atop the rubble of the twin towers. Back in
February of this year, as the Web site Salon documented, Bush remembered “a
guy pointing at me and saying, ‘Don’t let me down.’ ” In May, the figure
became “a guy in a hard hat” and then “the firefighter.” In June, he became
an ensemble of “tired firefighters and police and rescue workers,” who said,
collectively, “Don’t let us down.” In July, it was “a fireman or a
policeman, I can’t remember which one, looking me in the eyes.” Presently,
Bush added to the tale, saying the guy “grabbed me by the arm.” He then
added “bloodshot eyes and sweat pouring” to the portrait.
In August, Bush said the fellow, “a firefighter or a policeman,” was
“looking through the rubble for one of his buddies.” The “buddy” morphed
into “a loved one” and “somebody that he worked with,” then back into a
“buddy.” By September, Bush had dropped the buddy but developed new
recollections about the guy. “I remember a guy grabbed me by the arm, a big
old burly firefighter, I guess he was a firefighter. He said: ‘Do not let me
down.’”
This bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the “trifecta”, Bush’s false claim to have publicly listed three exceptions under which he might run federal budget deficits during a 2000 campaign stop in Chicago, which we show in All the President’s Spin morphed repeatedly between its introduction in October 2001 and its final appearances in June 2002 (see Appendix C). The question prompting the alleged statement, which no one, including the White House, can document, came variously from “somebody,” “a fellow,” “a reporter,” “a male reporter,” “the guy,” and “they”. Bush frequently told audiences that he remembered the event taking place while he was campaigning in Chicago and even lectured the press corps about what he “told the American people” during the campaign. As it turned out, Bush adviser Lawrence Lindsay did say in 1998 that Bush would support the list of exceptions, which was originally proposed by Al Gore. But the story about Chicago is apparently apocryphal, which makes the shifting details of Bush’s supposed anecdotes all the more disturbing. That’s not to say that the story about 9/11 is necessarily false, of course. Still, a healthy dose of skepticism is certainly in order.
