Day of Infamy

Bush takes to the airwaves

At 8:30 p.m. EST, the President reassured the nation. "Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts," he said in his first prime-time address in what suddenly seemed a scared new world. "Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror."

"These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat," Bush said. "But they have failed. Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve."

The speech was simple, somber and brief. It made no news, announced no action; it sought simply to reassure and encourage. It began for viewers with 10 seconds of a silent Bush who had not been told the cameras were rolling. But it put the president of the United States back at his desk at the Oval Office after a day on the move. The string of catastrophes that led from the nation�s financial heart in New York to its military one at the Pentagon led a wary Bush from an education event in Florida to military bases in Louisiana and Nebraska before the presidential helicopter finally touched down on the White House lawn shortly before dusk at 7 p.m. ET.

That same twilight found the erstwhile combatants of the U.S. Congress standing together and declaring solidarity in the face of an evil the likes of which Americans had perhaps seen on the movie screen but never imagined crossing over to the evening news. Dennis Hastert and Richard Gephardt, Tom Daschle and Trent Lott, a crowd of Republicans and Democrats alike, stood on the Capitol steps and told Americans that their government was resolved to keep them safe and make them proud. They promised retaliation. They held a moment of silence. They broke into "God Bless America." The tone in Washington had changed indeed, and perhaps forever.