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On Sept. 14,
2001, President Bush, just eight months into office and nine months
from the most tumultuous election in modern presidential history,
stood atop a pile of smoking rubble in lower Manhattan, addressing
rescue workers who still searched the shattered remnants of the
World Trade Center. 
With bullhorn
in hand, he spoke to the crowd, but the noise of the work kept
many from hearing the president and they repeatedly shouted they
could not hear him. Mr. Bush looked out across the firefighters
and volunteers and replied, "I can hear you. The rest of the world
hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will
hear all of us soon."
For George
W. Bush, like for the nation, the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11,
2001 that killed nearly 3,000 in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania
galvanized and focused his priorities and his message.
Soon after
the attacks, he first touched upon a theme that has continued
for the last three years: a leader of a nation at war.
"I understand
the job of the president," he told The Washington Post in December
2001. "And the job of the president is to lead a nation in a long
and difficult struggle, and this is going to be a very long and
difficult struggle."
In that interview,
he elaborated on how he knew he would demand sacrifice from many
Americans, and for some in the military and elsewhere he would
require the ultimate sacrifice.
"I know it
is hard for you to believe, but I have not doubted what we're
doing. ... You know, I regret loss of life, but I know it needed
to be done," he said. "Let me tell you something. Flight 93 [the
hijacked flight that crashed in Pennsylvania] redefined sacrifice
for me. And if a handful of people will drive an airplane into
the ground to save either me, or the White House, or the Congress,
you know, others in our country will make the sacrifice to save
us down the road."
For those
who have observed the president, the trials of Sept. 11 made him
more aware of his role in history and more determined in his leadership
style.
"[T]here's
much less of a sense that he is bound to make something of the
presidency in the eight months before 9/11 than in the period
beyond it," Princeton University professor Fred Greenstein, author
of two books about the Bush presidency, said on the NewsHour.
"I think it does help him to experience a shock of one kind or
another and then he is likely to focus on and put in major effort
and be highly determined."
-- By Lee Banville, Online NewsHour
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