By Mr. Curmudgeon
When George W. Bush was at the country’s helm, elements within the Central Intelligence Agency were unhappy that he relied so heavily on the National Security Agency and the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide. The two groups provided useful intelligence and fieldwork that disrupted Al Qaeda plots at home and overseas. The New York Times, therefore, proved a prime outlet for CIA anger. The Bush administration’s programs to track the flow of terrorist money and intercept telephone communications between Al Qaeda and their supporters here at home were daily front-page stories. But all that changed when Barack Obama walked into the Oval Office. The agency that so failed the country on 9/11 got a gift from heaven…a September 10th president. Recent events prove that the seat warmers at the CIA are back in business.
“The CIA's Africa desk had been preparing a report on the suspect in the Christmas Day airline plot well before the attempted attack,” Fox News reported, “but did not distribute it because the analyst in charge was waiting for pictures of the young Nigerian.” The analyst in question should be sending his report to Langley any day now - just as soon as he clips the image of Umar Farouk Abdulamutallab from the front page of the New York Times.
When President Obama appointed Leon Panetta to serve as CIA director, he described him as “one of the finest public servants that we’ve had” and that he brought “extraordinary management skills, great political savvy and an impeccable record of integrity.” Former President Bill Clinton seconded that assessment, praising his former chief of staff as “a trustworthy public servant who knows how to keep his mouth shut.” Panetta’s handling of “bimbo eruptions” for a presidential pants-dropper didn’t quite prepare him for dealing with Al Qaeda pants-bombers.
In a speech delivered last May before the American Enterprise Institute, Former Vice President Dick Cheney said, “When just a single clue that goes unlearned, one lead that goes unpursued, can bring on catastrophe – it’s no time for splitting differences. There is never a good time to compromise when the lives and safety of the American people are in the balance.”
Jane Mayer at the New Yorker magazine asked Leon Panetta his thoughts on Cheney’s speech. “I think he smells some blood in the water on the national-security issue. It’s almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that’s dangerous politics.” Panetta, ever the politician, chose words meant to provide preemptive cover for his lack of intelligence experience and his agency’s track record of incompetence.
The American people traditionally rally around a president during a crisis, but Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s statement that an Al Qaeda terrorist sneaking a bomb on board an American-bound aircraft showed how the Obama administration’s security “system worked,” dashed any hope of a rally. The president only added to the disillusionment by waiting 72 hours before tearing himself away from his Hawaiian vacation to address the foiled terror attempt in Detroit.
Sensing the sour mood building in the country, and smarting from criticism emanating from congressional Republicans, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chirs Van Hollen issued a statement to his pals at the New York Times. “It’s long past time for House Republicans to put country before political party and work with President Obama and Congressional Democrats to learn from this episode and act quickly to protect the American people.” The self-serving Van Hollen is more interested in protecting his president and congressional Democrats.
Someone needs to remind Van Hollen that the Republican Party is a meager minority in today’s Washington. And that, as Democrat Harry S Truman once said of the presidency, “The buck stops here.”
It appears everyone has gotten what they wished for. The American people got “hope and change,” the media (with the exception of Fox News) got the object of their affection into the White House and Al Qaeda found, that for them at least, the nation’s national security “system works.”
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