Originally Posted by WillCAD

BOTH parties would cut ties with any politician who gave such an order, from the President on down.

However, if such an order is ever given, I highly doubt that it will come from the President himself. I believe it will come from someone with a couple of stars on their shoulders at the Pentagon, or maybe even from someone with a bird on their shoulders, who is following some sort of protocol established during the months of absolute panic in the aftermath of 9/11, by consensus of military officers who have long since retired.

I'm certain that such protocols have been considered, written, and probably re-written multiple times, ever since 9/11. Our nation went off the deep end that day, and has sunk deeper and deeper into paranoid insanity in the years since. We allowed our government to create a whole new department and gutted several other departments to do it, we went to war with two countries, and we have eviscerated our own Constitution.

Plenty of new initiatives were put into place to specifically combat the exact threat vector of 9/11; I'm sure that some focus group at the Pentagon came up with a rigidly codified set of procedures for responding to a potential hijacking scenario, and a set path of escalation up to and including blowing an airliner out of the sky if it seems to be on a kamikaze mission. And I'm also certain that those procedures are designed to take that decision out of the President's hands, for two reasons:

1) On 9/11, Pres Bush was as confused as everyone else, and was out of touch and out of control despite his presence on Air Force One, so the decision would have to be made by on-duty officers at the Pentagon rather than a civilian who may or may not have the information needed to make it.

2) Plausible deniability. If the decision is not made by the President, then the President can't be held responsible for it, legally, politically, or morally. Knowing the gutless, self-serving nature of our country's leadership, I'm sure that even if Presidents Bush or Obama saw those protocols after they were finalized, they would have signed off on them willingly.