This is No Time to Keep Your Mouth Shut

by Adair Lara

San Francisco Chronicle

04 October 2001

THE DAILY COURIER is a little paper in Grants Pass, Ore., a former mill town of about 20,000 people on the Rogue River, ringed by mountains. The high school team is the Grants Pass Cavemen. The columnist up there is – was – Dan Guthrie, who doubles as copy editor. A former teacher, Dan has won 11 awards for his column (called "Dogwatch") over the past eight years.

On Sept. 15, Guthrie wrote that President Bush "skedaddled" after the attacks. "Most of his aides and Cabinet members split for secret locations, too."

The airline passengers whose struggle with hijackers is believed to have led to the crash in Pennsylvania "are the heroes of this rotten week," he said.

"They put it all on the line. Against their courage the picture of Bush hiding in a Nebraska hole becomes an embarrassment."

A huge outcry ensued. Hundreds of people protested. Guthrie got death threats.

So publisher Dennis Mack fired him.

Editor Dennis Roler, who had let the column go through, was asked to apologize to the readers. He wrote, "Criticism of our chief executive and those around him needs to be responsible and appropriate. Labeling him and the nation's other top leaders as cowards as the United States tries to unite after its bloodiest terrorist attack ever isn't responsible or appropriate."

To which I respond: Criticism of our chief executive and those around him needs to be responsible and appropriate?

Since when?

Did the Daily Courier sleep through the Monica feeding frenzy?

Of course it was in bad taste to make those remarks so soon after the tragedy. It was a week for coming together in national grief, not for quizzing the president on his whereabouts. Guthrie himself says, "I wish I had waited."

I REACHED HIM at home, since he doesn't have an office anymore. Dan said the editor told him it had made him feel like a fool to write that apology. His co-workers were sympathetic: They draped a flag over his computer, then watched him gather his stuff and leave the office.

Many Americans seem willing to give up some freedoms in exchange for greater safety. Truckers wait cheerfully in line for three hours to have their trucks searched before they drive into Manhattan. Passengers are happy to get to the airport earlier. My friend Janice was willing to have a long discussion with airport security over whether her eyebrow tweezer would be allowed to travel with her.

But freedom of speech may not be among the liberties we are willing to give up.

Bill Maher of "Politically Incorrect" lost advertisers when he said the plain truth – that the hijackers were not cowards. Professors, other columnists, even a German composer have been fired, disciplined or shunned for remarks made around the time of the attacks. The White House press secretary denounced Maher, saying that in times like these, "people have to watch what they say and watch what they do."

And they will, when they see others being punished for speaking out.

WHEN YOU LOOK up the Grants Pass Daily Courier on the Web, this quote, in large letters, is the first thing you see:

'The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account.' – Walter Lippmann

The truth of what happened, why it happened and what course we should take will emerge, as Lippmann said, as long as the press stays free and people don't lose their jobs for failing to "watch what they say." If you want to watch what you say, many countries will cheerfully help you out. When we let terrorists scare us into relinquishing freedoms that define our society – such as getting to take potshots at the president even at inappropriate times – then they truly undermine us. And they start to win.

Since when does criticism of the chief executive have to be responsible?

[Original column by Dan Guthrie]

Dogwatch column

by Dan Guthrie

Grants Pass Daily Courier

15 September 2001

Our president was reading to grade-schoolers in Sarasota, Fla., Tuesday morning while terrorists hijacked four jetliners and flew them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and an empty Pennsylvania field. He responded lamely upon hearing the news. He didn't storm back to the capital and lead us through our darkest hour. No, he flew to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, then to an underground bunker at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.

He skedaddled.

President George W. Bush wasn't the only one to take a powder. Most of his aides and Cabinet members split for secret locations too. Vice President Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice, the national security adviser, hunkered down in the White House basement's Situation Room while a small army patrolled the grounds. Leaders of Congress took shelter at secure, predetermined sites," according to the Secret Service.

Bush returned to the White House at dusk Tuesday after the threat had passed. He arrived concealed among several decoy helicopters. It was the prudent thing to do.

People often panic in times of disaster. Here and elsewhere, gas lines developed as motorists believed rumors of shortages and proprietors turned into profiteers. The citizens enjoying Bend's go-go economy reacted by pulling their money out of banks. Over in Ontario, a run on rifle ammo bared store shelves. Christian radio stations predicted the end of the world and urged sinners to pray.

Many of us did. President Bush prayed. The pope prayed. Russian President Putin prayed. Yasser Arafat prayed. Astronauts aboard the international space station, upon spotting smoke over New York, prayed.

All the prayers were not for the 5,000 victims. A New York travel agent staying in Medford thanked God for sparing his life, saying, "God sent us out here on vacation and away from danger." That's one way to look at it.

Soon, our prayers were yoked with patriotism. The first Day of Infamy" speech passed the lips of a politician within hours of the crashes. Red-blooded Americans began calling for retribution even though we knew nothing about the hijackers except they were terrorists. Or maybe we did know something since all terrorists are Arabs. Well, all except Timothy McVeigh.

The usual bleeding hearts popped up. Five hundred candlelighters gathered Tuesday night in downtown San Francisco to implore President Bush to forsake revenge. Only love and compassion in this time of crisis is the answer," said one speaker. A homeless fellow swilling beer and toting a live rooster screamed back, "Leave this country if you don't love it."

The poultryman pretty much expressed the general sentiment.

Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., rallied Americans Thursday once the trail of guilt led toward Osama bin Laden, who is sheltered among the Taliban in Afghanistan. I say, bomb the hell out of them," thundered Miller. "If there's collateral damage, so be it. They certainly found our civilians to be expendable."

So now the president and Congress are declaring war on terrorists in particular and Afghanistan in general. It is not a war they will fight, of course. The most powerful flag wavers have already shown a yellow streak among all that red, white and blue. No, they'll leave the dangerous part to others.

That's good. America isn't short on bravery except among blowhards. Hundreds of firefighters died while trying to save people trapped in the World Trade Center. Scores of relatives rushed there as well, attempting to rescue their own. And high in the skies above Pennsylvania, Thomas Burnett Jr., Jeremy Glick and other passengers learned by cell phone what the hijackers of Flight 93 intended to do. Somehow they thwarted the suicide mission, causing the jetliner to crash in a rural field.

These are the heroes of this rotten week. They put it all on the line. Against their courage the picture of Bush hiding in a Nebraska hole becomes an embarrassment.

The president's men are frantically glossing over his cowardice. They claim they had advance word the White House was one of the terrorists' targets. That doesn't wash, since Cheney remained in its basement. They also say they were adhering to the military playbook for national emergencies" in moving our president from place to place, far from the danger zone. That might make sense if Bush were a puppet, but he's supposed to be the commander-in-chief the guy with the final say.

Such feeble excuses just make what Bush did look worse. The kid has lived a pampered life of privilege and games. His first time under real pressure, he bolted. Many do. Maybe he'll have a chance to redeem himself now that the holy wars have reached our land.

We're praying for him.