The word irony is utterly insufficient to describe the fact that so many of them profess the worship of Jesus, who was tortured to death.

"If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron." -Spider Robinson

Waterboarding is not "simulated drowning", it is real drowning cut a little short.

I don't expect to see neocon euphemisms in Salon, please be more careful with your wording in the future.

I work on contract, which gives me long periods of time in which I am at my leisure to do as I please, but the other side of the coin is that I also have long periods when I often work 18 to 20 hour days.. Just trying to explain my sometimes long absences.

Back to my title.. I read the previous letters column (now closed to comments) and noted the posts about the fictional nature of the government's story of the events of 9/11/2001. I couldn't help but note the derision poured upon the poster that had the temerity to question the government's version of events.

My title comes from a Sherlock Holmes story "Silver Blaze", in which the clue which leads Holmes to the solution of the mystery is a dog which did not bark in the night when it should have done so if the series of events happened as they were related to Holmes.

The job of the Secret Service is to protect the President, and when the President is considered to be under a direct threat by the SS then the President is just along for the ride.. The SS takes command and the President is hustled to safety whether he wishes to be or not. In protecting the President the watchword of the SS is prudence, they are prudent to a fault.

On the morning of 9/11/2001 the current resident was in a schoolhouse in Florida, it was an event on the published itinerary and was hence an item of public knowledge, including that of possible terrorists.

Recall that the current resident was informed by his chief of staff, Andrew Card, that the nation was under attack shortly after the second plane hit the WTC. At that time it was not known what the scope or the full nature of the attacks might be.

Prudence would dictate that the SS immediately remove the current resident from that schoolhouse and whisk him to an undisclosed location, as indeed they did with Ctheney.

But the fact of the matter is that the current resident was not removed from the Florida schoolhouse immediately, in fact he remained there some half an hour or so after the second strike on the WTC.

Why did the Secret Service dog not bark in the night?

This is the question that has been burning in my mind for some six years now, ever since I became aware of the series of events of that fateful morning.

If you cannot answer my simple question then you should perhaps reevaluate your acceptance of the government story as to the nature of the events that transpired on 9/11/2001.

Sometimes a lack of reaction is the most revealing reaction of all.

What part of "the nature and scope of the attacks were unknown at that time" do you fail to understand?

As I already pointed out, the watchword of the Secret Service when protecting the President is prudence. I recall that when the current resident visited some nation in Africa, hundreds of very old and large trees were cut down on the route of his motorcade to the capital from the airport where AF1 landed.

The prudent action would have been to remove the current resident from the Florida schoolhouse as rapidly as possible, after all, airliners had GPS in 2001. The GPS I have in my car is accurate to within a very few meters, I rather doubt that the GPS in airliners, even in 2001, was much less accurate than the one I bought a couple of years ago for a few hundred dollars.

The lack of reaction here to my question is most revealing, note that instantaneous derision has not been poured upon my head.

LOL, I get the impression that all the regulars here have too much time on their hands, you are certainly far from alone in that regard.

As for your point about a jet from the NE taking two hours to reach Miami, it was not known at the time that all the hijackings had taken place in the NE.

All of your arguments are based upon "knowledge" that has been acquired in the months and years since 9/11/2001.

As for visiting conspiracist sites, I've never been to any of those to which you linked.. In fact, after a few minutes research I find that my view of the matter was developed before those sites even existed.

Of course the GPS on an airliner does not work on a street address, it works on entering coordinates of latitude and longitude.. Coordinates which can be discovered in minutes, if not seconds, with trivial research.

I'll just note that September 7th precedes September 11th by four days, more than enough time to discover the coordinates of the school in question. You make my argument for me.

Perhaps it is *you* who should refrain from making stupid arguments that are based entirely upon hindsight. As we all know, hindsight is 20/20..

Let me revise my statement a bit then for Captain Nitpick..

It was not *supposed* to be known that all the hijackings were in the NE.

Frankly, I have no idea of who knew what, but the evidence does suggest that there was some advance knowledge on the part of someone in the administration..

Do you have another reasonable explanation for why the SS did not hustle the current resident from the the Booker elementary school?

If *you* were in charge of the SS detail that morning, what would you have considered to be the prudent course of action to be followed?