Last night, the Facebook status of a close liberal/Democrat friend read:
TSA is now “banning the use of blankets and pillows an hour before landing.” Because you might try to hide under a blanket to light your explosive … What about the rest of your 12 hour flight? F**king idiots. Really? Is this the best we can do?
Yes, my friend. This is the best we can do. Even under the Bush administration, the airlines handled terrorism in many ways, but not by profiling for terrorists, which makes the flying lives of everybody else inconvenient. A few years ago a radical Muslim terrorist snuck onto an airplane a bomb hidden in his shoe. Did that make us look for more radical Muslim terrorists? Nooooo. Instead, before boarding an airplane, everybody now has to take off their shoes! And now, because of another radical Muslim terrorist hiding explosive material in his underwear, everyone will soon be subjected to an all-out frisking at the airport.
A lot of pundits on the rightosphere weighed in over the weekend on the (thankfully) botched terror attack aboard an airplane landing in Detroit on Christmas Day. By Sunday DHS Sec Janet Napolitano was on CNN was spinning the events to make it look like some Obama administration success. The most laughable point of her interview was when the woman who notoriously labeled white Tea Partiers as extremists actually said that the way things went down on that airplane indicated that “the system worked.”
John Hinderaker at Power Line deftly deconstructs Napolitano’s CNN interview here. He writes:
So the “system” consists of hoping there is an alert Dutch filmmaker on board, and that the terrorist’s detonator fails? … The idea that responding to terrorist attacks, rather than preventing them, constitutes “success” is eerily reminiscent of our policies pre-September 11.
Michelle Malkin also scoffs at Napolitano’s laughable assessment:
Not so fast, Michelle. Yesterday, while President Hope&Change was vacationing in Hawaii working on his golf game, WH spokesman Bill Burton told the press this [h/t Verum Serum]:If the “system” had “worked,” the U.S. consular officials who granted Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab a short-term visa last June would have revoked it immediately upon being informed by his father that he was a Muslim radical with al Qaeda ties.
If the “system” had “worked,” U.S. consular officials would have never granted Abdulmutallab — a rootless, young, single male — a visa in the first place in compliance with State Department visa regulation 214(b) …
If the “system” had “worked,” Abdulmutallab would have been barred from the U.S. like he had been barred from Britain.
The “system,” like Napolitano, was an epic fail.
And as predicted, Napolitano also played the “lone nut” card — dismissing the Christmas Day jihadist as a single operator not part of “anything larger” despite his own testimony to the contrary.
She’s Obama’s biggest joker. And there’s no Blame-Bush loophole to weasel through anymore.
We are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us, and have dramatically increased our resources in Afghanistan and Pakistan where those terrorists are. We are putting the pressure on al Qaeda worldwide with all elements of American power, and key al Qaeda leaders have been taken out in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Gibbs also made clear the President refuses to play politics with these issues. As he said in West Point, we must put aside petty politics and recapture the unity that we had after 9/11.
Lastly, Gibbs and Secretary Napolitano announced that the president has asked that the policies and procedures that have been in place the last several years related to watch-listing and all information available on the suspect be reviewed. He has also asked that the Department of Homeland Security, specifically the Transportation Security Administration, review its practices and capabilities as he is interested in learning how the explosive material was brought on board the aircraft and steps that can be taken to enhance the ability of airport screeners to detect and interdict such materials in the future.
So the president’s spokesperson plays petty politics against the Bush administration, then two sentences later says the president refuses to play politics with this issue, and then starting with the very next sentence plays petty politics again at least two more times.
(I not-so-politely mentioned this inconvenient truth on my own Facebook page last night. The result of that was getting an earful from two liberal/Democrat friends for being petulant, partisan, indecent, and vapid.)
UPDATE: As I write this, Napolitano has appeared on the Today show with Matt Lauer conceding they failed misery … but not without pointing her bony finger back at the Bush administration, blaming them for the security procedures they put in place. Jeez, this woman is as unprofessional and immature as her boss. You’ve been DHS Sec for almost a year, Toots. If Bush’s security procedures were so piss poor, why didn’t you do something about it yet? I guess you were too busy putting white U.S. veteran Tea Party protesters on the terrorist lists …
Bill at the Patriot Room isn't satisfied by Napolitano's sudden discovery of that elusive thing called "the truth." He cites the Washington Post:
"Security failed," said Doron Bergerbest-Eilon, Israel's senior-ranking counterterrorism officer from 1997 to 2000 and a former national regulator for aviation security. It is of little comfort that Abdulmutallab was stopped only after he allegedly failed to properly detonate the bomb, instead igniting a fire that alerted fellow passengers, Bergerbest-Eilon said.
"The system repeatedly fails to prevent attacks and protect passengers when challenged," he said, adding that, in the minds of security experts, "for all intents and purposes, Northwest Flight 253 exploded in midair."
Bone-chilling, but truthful.
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Andrew McCarthy at National Review online also weighs in on the incompetence:
… [A]fter 9/11, the 9/11 Commission, etc. — we have Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab: He was in the terrorist “database” because we were warned by his own influential father of his radical ties and proclivities, and he was evidently notorious among associates in Africa and Europe for his jihadist leanings; yet, he was issued a multiple-entry visa. And he claims to have been trained in Yemen — the al Qaeda hub to which the administration has just sent a half-dozen trained jihadists previously detained in Gitmo, and where it hopes to send many more.
I wonder what the media would be saying if George Bush were still president.
Hadn’t Abdulmutallab heard that we are closing Gitmo? Hadn’t he heard that we’re phasing out military-commissions so we can show the world that we give even the worst mass-murderers civilian trials with all the rights of American citizens? Hadn’t he heard that President Obama has banned torture (yes, yes, I know, actually Congress banned it 15 years ago — details, details ...)? Hadn’t he heard that the president has called for “a new beginning” in America’s relationship with the Muslim world? Hadn’t he heard that this is our new, smarter strategy to safeguard the nation from man-caused disasters?
Jonah Goldberg, also writing at NRO, outrightly suggests Napolitano be fired for this glaring display of national security incompetence since … um, Ft. Hood.
… It is her basic position that the “system worked” because the bureaucrats responded properly after the attack. That the attack was “foiled” by a bad detonator and some civilian passengers is proof, she claims, that her agency is doing everything right. That is just about the dumbest thing she could say, on the merits and politically. I would wager that not one percent of Americans think the system is “working” when terrorists successfully get bombs onto planes (and succeed in activating them). Probably even fewer think it’s fair that they have to take off their shoes, endure delays and madness while a known Islamic radical — turned in by his own father — can waltz onto a plane (and into the country). DHS had no role whatsoever in assuring that this bomb didn’t go off. By her logic if the bomb had gone off, the system would have “worked” since it has done everything right.
Napolitano has a habit of arguing that DHS is a first responder outfit. Its mission is to deal with “man-caused-disasters” afer they occur. It appears she really believes it. If the White House wants to assure people that it takes the war on terror seriously (a term Robert Gibbs used this morning by the way), they could start by firing this patenly unqualified hack.
Ouch.
See updates to Goldberg’s post, where he posts some commenter responses.
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Oh, here’s something from the “Why Am I Not Surprised?” Department: The folks at Newsbusters noted over the weekend that major news outlets, most notably the New York Times and Associated Press did not mention that the terrorist on the Detroit-bound plane was Muslim. And on CNN, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) was shushed twice by CNN interviewer Ali Veshi from mentioning Abdul Mudallad’s name.
What do we make of all this insanity from our own politically correct, ideologically-blinded government and media? It seems to me that the one thing interconnecting this incident, the Ft. Hood massacre, the shoe bomber incident from a few years ago, and other such incidents isn’t that our security officials can’t connect the dots; it’s that they won’t. [UPDATE: Full Metal Patriot makes the same assessment] Political correctness and fear of offending the wrong kind of people got people killed at Ft. Hood, and they almost got people killed on Christmas Day. Don’t get me wrong – Bush’s national security people let PC cloud their judgment too. But not as badly as this bunch.
So get ready, all you white blue-haired old ladies with your little crosses or Stars of David hanging around your necks: One hour before the end of your flight you must relinquish your blanket and pillows, and keep your crotch open to view.
You know, for the sake of national security.
Related reading: "Learning From Abdul Mutallab" by Victor Davis Hanson
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