Chris Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday, explained his experiences covering Reagan in 1983. He was in Santa Barbara at his ranch when this happened, and quite frankly he didnt want to leave, Wallace said. And his advisers realized how terrible this looked, and eventually persuaded him he had to fly back to Washington and had to make this speech to the nation. Reagan biographer Paul Kengor described the president’s reaction in his book The Crusader. Kengor quotes Reagan telling his National Security Advisor William Clark to be careful not to overreact to this. According to press reports at the time, Reagan wanted arms control talks with the Soviets to continue and resisted putting economic sanctions on Russia. As for Obama, news of the Malaysia plane crash started appearing around 11:30 a.m. Washington time. By 12:05 p.m., White House reporters said Obama had been briefed on the crash. By shortly after 1 p.m., Obama and Russian Vladimir Putin discussed the crash and shortly after 2 p.m., Obama made a few brief remarks at a previously scheduled event in Delaware. Obviously the world is watching reports of a downed passenger jet near the Russia-Ukraine border. And it looks like it may be a terrible tragedy, Obama said. Right now, we’re working to determine whether there were American citizens onboard. That is our first priority. (If your public policies are sound, you dont have to lie to the American public.)
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 11:04:02 +0000