John Kerry described HIS reaction to 911 (and that of Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid) - these Democratic Senators were according to Kerry "unable to think" for 40 minutes:
KING: Where were you on 9/11?
KERRY: I was in the Capitol. We'd just had a meeting -- we'd just come into a leadership meeting in Tom Daschle's office, looking out at the Capitol. And as I came in, Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid were standing there, and we watched the second plane come in to the building. And we shortly thereafter sat down at the table and then we just realized nobody could think, and then boom, right behind us, we saw the cloud of explosion at the Pentagon. And then word came from the White House, they were evacuating, and we were to evacuate, and so we immediately began the evacuation.
HEINZ KERRY: You walked out with John McCain, didn't you?
KERRY: Yes.
KING: You and what?
HEINZ KERRY: He and John walked out together.
KING: He and John McCain walked out.... .............
The second plane hit the WTC at 9:03 AM and the plane crashed into the Pentagon at 9:43 AM. For a period of 40 minutes Mr. Kerry did nothing because "nobody could think". Conversely, the President did think. It took the President seven minutes to vault into action while his staff was preparing his departure. Those were seven minutes the Secret Service had to secure an alternate route for the Presidential motorcade and Air Force One, seven minutes to make the executive decision to ground all aircraft, and seven minutes to make the decision to issue orders to shoot down any aircraft that failed to comply. Kerry's immediate response was not to check on his family, not to check on any of his Boston constituency where some attack planes originated, not to inquire if the attack was continuing, and for at least 40 minutes he didn't call any federal agency to see where he could be of help. In fact, he waited for 40 minutes to be told what to do.
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