12-06-2009, 05:20 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-06-2009, 05:58 AM by Don Dresden.)
ham Wrote:Nothing strange.
During 9-11 the great leader of the even greater nation flew up there on his jet while little hulkamaniacs burned to death...
Those are not comparable situations. As evidenced by the attack on the Pentagon and the unsuccessful attack on DC that ended up in a field, the terrorists were aiming at high profile government targets, of which POTUS would be the highest of profiles. The VT nutjob gave no indication he had the uni pres on his Richard McBeef radar. In fact the early report was that it was a domestic dispute. But under any circumstance, if events warrant protecting the admin then why don't they also warrant protecting the students? At VT the administrative view is "me first" and every man for himself after that. The captain ain't ever going down with that ship.
Also, on 9-11 nobody was trying to hush up news of the attacks or sweep it under the rug. Not that they could, with the tallest buildings in the country collapsing into rubble on national TV. But as you can read in the report, at VT you have specific conversations being quoted where they said "just try to make sure it doesn't get out." (“Gunman on the loose,” he says, adding “This is not releasable yet.”) p. 28, 8:45.
Not only were they just not warning students, they were actively trying to prevent students from learning of the dangerous situation. If the rest of the campus had been sealed off as quickly as the president's office was, a lot of VT students would have lived. In the 9-11 situation, the fact that there was so much publicity is what allowed the passengers on the 4th plane to foil the hijackers' plan. If the VT students had known that Mr. Question Mark was wandering around playing with guns they might have been prepared to mount a similar defense.