More On The Abstract Art of Miles O’Brien

It seems serial doodler Miles O’Brien of CNN has a past history with misusing the magic of the Telestrator. The following is from a Web site called Commemorate WTC, which is dedicated to archiving the news transcripts from Sept. 11, 2001.

09/11/01 - 16:58

JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: [We’re] joined here on this set by Miles O'Brien, our resident pilot, and certainly has quite a bit of understanding about the wheres and why-fors and what significance they might have in putting together what happened. Miles has some additional information now, and that is really important to understanding.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is our first clue as to what is going on. Obviously more information will come out as the air traffic control tapes and hopefully the cockpit voice recordings come out. But let's take a look at this.

Let me just kind of put this onto one graphic, if you will. Let's put up that graphic and I'll the Telestrator to show you exactly what is going on. Here are the important cities. First of let's take a look at 8 a.m. and see what happens at 8 a.m.

That was the first departure. This is flight -- American Airlines Flight 11, was headed out this way to Los Angeles. 81 passengers, 11 crew members. Now 8:15. United Flight 175 heads out a little different route across, also headed for Los Angeles. That was at 8:15.

8:21 a.m. Dulles Airport is your location, and that is American Airlines Flight 77, a 757. 58 passengers and crew. It headed off onto Los Angeles. We don't have a radar track on this, so I'm doing a little bit of speculation there.

Finally, United Airlines Flight 93 at 8:43 departs Newark Airport and begins its trip all the way over to Cleveland. Now let's get the impact times. 8: 45, American Airlines Flight 11 impacts at New York at the World Trade Center. 9:03 the United Flight 175 impacts at World Trade Center.

9:45 a.m. -- of course, all these times are eastern times -- the flight American Airlines flight that was headed from Dulles to San Francisco -- excuse me, Dulles to Los Angeles, hits at the -- excuse me. I was drawing -- I should have been drawing that to New York. I was drawing it to Washington -- hits at the Pentagon -- my apologies on that -- and finally United air ends up outside of Pittsburgh. I've made a bit of hash there. But that gives you a sense of how well coordinated this was and how sophisticated an operation this was.

CHEN: Miles O'Brien, thanks for your all your insight on this. Now we return to Aaron Brown up in New York.

AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Joie, Miles, thank you. That is a great point.

Yes indeed, thanks Miles for all of that insight and all those great points associated with drawing lines on a map. To the wrong cities. What would we do without you?

Please, CNN, take this man’s pens away before we start bombing Iraq, or everyone in your audience may get the idea we’ve begun bombing Tel Aviv. Or perhaps Tokyo.

FYI - I did edit the transcript cited above, but for space purposes only (not only can’t the man draw, he tends to be a little wordy and disjointed.) But believe me, I didn’t change the essence of his abstract Jackson Pollack-like Telestration explanations one bit. To verify check out the link above.

If anyone knows of a video still image of Miles’s doodling either this past Saturday or from Sept. 11, 2001, please e-mail it or the link to me. I’ll make it worth your while. That’s right a free “Deserve Victory!” bumper sticker.