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Jeff Bucchino
McCain misses the mark
with national address
WASHINGTON — Sen.
John McCain had just begun
his speech from Kenner, La.,
on the year’s last primary elec¬
tion night when distraught
Republicans began e-mailing
each other this message: Is it
possible at this late hour for
our presidential candidate to learn to read a
teleprompter?
McCain’s strategists, concerned that he
has been out of the spotlight for months while
Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton
battled for the Democratic nomination, long
ago planned to get some national attention
June 3. But McCain looked uncomfortable
addressing a few hundred supporters at the
dreary Pontchartrain Center in the New
Orleans suburb.
In contrast, Obama’s managers booked the
huge Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn.,
site of the Republican National Convention
three months from now. The Democratic can¬
didate showed off his oratorical skills before
a big partisan audience.
Justice Hillary?
If Barack Obama is elected president,
mutual friends say the best course for Hillary
Clinton might be nomination to the U.S.
Supreme Court rather than staying in the
Senate.
Clinton is also talked about as suitable for
secretary of state in an Obama administration.
The consensus among her friends is that she
would not be content forging a lifetime career
in the Senate, as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy
did after he lost the 1980 presidential nomi¬
nation.
A footnote: The last confirmed Supreme
Court nominee without prior judicial experi¬
ence was Lewis Powell, a prestigious attorney
from Richmond, Va., named by President
Richard M. Nixon in 1971. No high court
selection has had so modest a legal back¬
ground as Clinton since President John F.
Kennedy named football star Byron
(Whizzer) White in 1962.
Sen. Emanuel?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reported to
be privately talking about Rep. Rahm
Emanuel, currently House Democratic
Caucus chairman, as the next senator from
Illinois if Sen. Barack Obama wins the presi¬
dential election.
Emanuel told this column he is not inter¬
ested in the Senate and has not talked to
9/11 lessons unlearned
It was 4:30 in the morning and
my wife, Beverly, and 1 were fast
asleep on the 12th floor of a hotel in
Cambridge, Mass.
We were beat. We had just com¬
pleted a rather tiresome trip involv¬
ing a long drive to the airport,
delayed connections and, after arriv¬
ing late at the hotel, bad news: The
hotel was full, the room we had
been guaranteed was no longer
available and we would be given
temporary accommodations for the
first night of our stay.
We were awakened by a strident
sound in the room — a siren or
something. At first, through the fog
of sleep, it was difficult to under¬
stand what was happening.
Then, about the third time the
sounds recycled, it became apparent
that, attached to the siren was an
emergency message. But the quality
of the sound was poor and it was
hard to decipher what we were
being asked to do.
Eventually, a number of words
came through, the most prominent
being, “evacuate the building imme¬
diately” and “do not use the eleva¬
tors.”
Similar thoughts went through
both of our minds. What was going
on? Was it a drill? That didn’t seem
to make any sense.
A fire? A bomb? A prank (we
were here for a college reunion, and
the humor of my classmates of old
would not have placed this out of the
realm of possibility).
First decision — what do you
put on? Go down in pajamas or a
robe? Stop to put on clothes? What
we had worn yesterday was readily
available, so that was our choice.
But the clock was ticking and
the message was still insisting that
we get out. Then — what do you
take? The answer was very little.
Almost everything in our suit¬
cases was replaceable — computer,
camera, clothing. Instead, we
grabbed our jewelry, cash, cell
phones and wallets and got out —
things that we didn’t want to leave
behind that we might need later if
the emergency was real.
Now came the big decision.
How do we get out? Where do we
go? Supposedly, the answer was
provided by the chart on the back of
our door. But even with the lights on
(and there was electricity, which
Robert
Novak
COLUMNIST
the Senate.
A footnote: The same source said Pelosi
indicated House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
would be her eventual successor as speaker,
even though she opposed his election to the
second-ranking leadership position. Emanuel
has been widely mentioned as the speaker of
the next decade.
Vice President Jindal?
Retiring Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, a
prominent Republican moderate publicly crit¬
ical of his party’s right wing, has joined con¬
servatives boosting newly elected 36-year-old
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to be John
McCain’s vice presidential running mate.
Meeting with reporters, Davis said Jindal
as the son of immigrants from India would
add an ethnic element to the Republican tick¬
et without turning off any voters. He noted
that Jindal, who served briefly in Congress
before his election as governor last year, has
about as much federal experience as Barack
Obama. “I don’t know whether that qualifies
him to serve as VP or not,” Davis commented.
Jindal-for-vice president chatter got a
boost when he spent a recent weekend as a
guest at McCain’s Arizona cabin.
Courteous Republicans
Sens. John Warner and Pete Domenici,
two senior Republicans not seeking re-elec¬
tion this year, made certain that Democrats
narrowly passed their budget, 48 to 45,
because they exercised old-fashioned senato¬
rial courtesy.
The two most senior Democratic senators,
Robert Byrd and Edward M. Kennedy, were
not present for the vote because of illness.
Warner and Domenici gave them “live pairs”
— not voting in order to negate the absence
of the Democrats. If Sen. John McCain (the
only absent Republican) had been there and
Warner and Domenici had voted, the budget
would have failed on a 48 to 48 tie.
A footnote: Sen. Hillary Clinton was
absent, but Sen. Barack Obama was presented
and voted for the budget.
Robert Novak is a nationally syndicated
columnist and a television commentator.
Mel
Copen \ ♦
might not have been the case in
some emergency situations), the
ability of a bleary-eyed person to
read the tiny print was next to
impossible. So step out into the hall¬
way and see what you can see.
. We did. It was clear. The hotel
has a huge atrium lobby that extends
up to the 12th floor. We could see all
the way down, as well as the walk¬
ways that circle the atrium at every
level. No smoke. We could see other
guests, groggy like ourselves, on
lower floors, moving slowly in all
forms of attire. And there, on our
floor, was a bright exit sign directing
us to a stairwell. So we dutifully fol¬
lowed the arrows and, with some
trepidation, opened the door to the
12 flights of stairs that we would
have to negotiate. Then the shock.
We had taken enough time get¬
ting dressed (and using the bath¬
room) that most people were ahead
of us. The stairwell was packed with
people, up to the 10th floor, and no
one was moving. The couple in front
of us was elderly. He was a very
large man and clearly had problems
walking. She was helping him. As
they moved down to the 10th level,
where they had to stop, it was at a
snails pace. We probably could have
passed them, but to what end?
The stairwell was a place of total
confusion and almost no movement.
No one had any clue why. Was there
fire at the foot of the well? There
was no smoke. Was the exit
blocked?
Should we push ahead, trying to
pass, creating ill will and possible
problems or panic? Or should we
just wait, while the situation wors¬
ened — waiting, perhaps to die?
It was an “interesting dilemma.”
I don’t have much concern for
myself (probably a false sense of
confidence that I have always sur¬
vived personal emergencies and will
continue to do so). But I had
Beverly to worry about, and then
there were hundreds of people in the
hotel who were hopelessly grid
locked in the stairwell.
Pelosi about it.
He also suggested that
Pelosi might be saying she
would regret losing him from
her leadership team. However,
the source quoting the speaker
indicated she was enthusiastic
about Emanuel’s elevation to
FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS — Wednesday, June 11,2008
I decided there must be another
exit. So we abandoned the stairwell
(by now, after five minutes, we were
still on the l()th floor binding) and
went back to look for another. 1
could only guess where. All the
signs 1 could see led to the stairwell
from which we had emerged. A few
people came with us.
I took the logical option and,
sure enough, we found another stair
well at the opposite end of the build
ing. It, too, was filled with people in
stasis. No one was moving. By now,
everyone was nervous. There
seemed no way out.
Then we noticed that one of the
elevators was running. The
announcement to the contrary, 1
made the decision that betting 20
seconds on the elevator was. a better
risk than spending untold time in the
stairwell, waiting for something to
happen. We made it to the lobby
without incident.
Hundreds of people were
milling around outside. Getting to
the lobby gave one a sense of securi
ty. but if the problem was a bomb,
that sense would have been the
undoing of all of us. But there was
no one there to give instructions. 1
immediately went to the desk where
the night receptionist was still on
duty.
He stood there looking and act
ing like he was in shock. He had no
clue as to what was going on. I told
him about the people in the stair
wells. He acknowledged the infor
mation and continued to stand there
looking blank.
With that, Beverly suggested
calling 911. 1 spoke to a dispatcher,
explained the situation, and was told
that the fire department would be on
ds way. 1 then went looking for
someone in authority at the hotel.
1 found the very distraught hotel
general manager. He explained that
they had just located the problem —
a ground fault in the garage — and
that everything was now OK.
I asked if he knew what was
going on in the stairwells. His
response: “There are a lot of elderly
people in the hotel and it takes time.”
I asked why there weren’t hotel
personnel at the stairwell exits to
expedite, and on the floors to let
people know what was going on and
what to do. I also asked why
announcements weren’t being made
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to the people in the kfbby or bull
horns being used to provide instruc
tions to the people in the stairwells
or on the atrium walkways,
He explained his dilemma —
with limited staff, didhd help people
evacuate and provide information,
or did he focus on identifying the
problem that had set off the auto¬
matic alarm system in the first
place? He chose the latter,
The emergency was over. As I sit
here writing this while the sun rises I
can’t help but think about the people
in the World Trade Center — the
thousands who died, not from the
immediate impact of the planes
crashing into the floors on which
they worked, but because of the
ensuing confusion and the lack oj
clear instructions relating to evacu¬
ation. The people trapped in the
stairwells, slowly and politely wend¬
ing their way down, while those in
front of them had no idea of the
urgency and the dire straits that all
were in.
I thought of the heroic efforts of
those from outside, the first respon
ders, trying as best they could to
communicate and bring order to a
totally chaotic process, many of
them giving their lives in the confu
sion. And 1 thought about haw little
the management of this hotel (and
many others I am sure) had learned
from that experience or how much
they had forgotten.
The good news — there was no
emergency; no one was harmed,
other than the loss of sleep; and life
for between 500 and 600 people
returned to normal. Their loved ones
may never even learn of the inci
dent.
The hotel manager, too, was for¬
tunate. He was presented with an
opportunity to learn something
important for the future.
The bad news remains to be
seen, for if that learning never takes
place and gets translated into action,
future results may be both horrible
and criminal. When will we ever
learn?
Obviously, the lessons that
should have been learned from the
tragedy of 9/11 have already been
lost or ignored by some organiza
tions and need to be relearned,
Dr. Melvyn Copen lives in both
Georgia and Arizona. E-mail him at
melcopen@hotmail.com.
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