Fortunately enough for George W. Bush, when Richard Reid (the man who singlehandedly condemned all American travelers to have to remove their shoes to go through security) , tried to blow up an airplane using his sneakers, it was considered unpatriotic and borderline treasonous to lob any criticisms at the office of the President when it came to matters of home security. On vacation during the incident, Bush said nothing for six days and faced virtually no critiques or media scrutiny.
Thank God THAT’S over as GOP critics line up to try and do everything short of of accusing Barack Obama of actually putting Abdulbob Bombpants up to the challenge of trying to blow a plane out of the sky. Does ANYONE doubt at this point that if Gore had been in office during 9/11, the GOP–rather than asserting that the country should line up behind its president–would have been claiming that America was targeted because terrorists saw Gore as weak and would have been lobbying for investigations if not outright impeachment?
PAD
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Obviously your comparison must be flawed somewhere.
It is. A better comparison would be between criticisms Bush received in his last term with criticisms Obama is receiving in his first, since the span of time is less. The media didn’t make up excuses for Bush the way it is for Obama right now.
I’m not so sure that Obama is getting the free ride you think he is–he’s getting (justifiably) hammered for saying multiple times that the healthcare debate would be open and transparent and on CSPA and reneging on that promise. (and his spokesman’s weak attempts to skirt the issue have only fed the flames).
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/06/eveningnews/main6064298.shtml
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pO1oJPps1I
I’m not so sure that Obama is getting the free ride you think he is
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But *of course* he is. Liberal president? Liberal media?
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C’mon, Bill! It’s SOOOOO obvious!
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Just like Congress is rubber-stamping every single thing Obama wants, right? After all, the Dems control both the House and the Senate. And they’ve got 60 in the Senate! Filibuster-proof rubber-stamping!
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Obama has it easy, right!?
I know, because the press was sooooooooooo easy on him for 8 years. Incredible!!!
Come on!
You get that I’m not talking about the entirety of his presidency, right? That I’m taking two specific, parallel situations and comparing them. Or is that too hard to follow for a Bush defender?
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PAD
I’ll choose option #2. Remember the Bushie creed – it’s OK to attack Dems, it’s unpatriotic treason to even suggest that Bush and his cadre did anything wrong ever even for a second.
At least Bush has the bare decency to remain silent in his retirement from office. Ðìçk Cheney, on the other hand, is so narcissistic in his inability to realize how out of his depth he is, has criticized Obama, raising Chutzpah to new heights. I love how this source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/31/terrorism-republicans-barack-obama, claims that “Republicans broke with the tradition of publicly backing a president during a national security crisis…” Really? There was a tradition of this? Ha! It’s not a “tradition”. It’s SOP when the President is a Republican, and not a Democrat. That’s the only “tradition” I’ve observed with respect to their criticism.
Cheney knows exactly what he’s doing.
IMHO, he’s intentionally casting himself as Obama’s harshest critic so that, in the very possible event that hard evidence arises that would obligate prosecuting him as a war criminal (torture, et al.), it will be that much more difficult politically to do anything. (You can almost already see the Fox News headline: “Is Obama using the courts to silence his critics?”)
In a somewhat similar vein, Rush Limbaugh is in a hospital for heart problems apparently. The thing is, this happened while he was in Hawaii, where Obama is. If Limbaugh doesn’t improve, er, get better, um, recover his health, can’t you see questions about whether or not Obama had him poisoned?
Kim, didn’t you mean to say, “In a somewhat similar vein, Rush Limbaugh is in a hospital for rotting black husk problems”?
In a parallel bit of hypocrisy. I have seen criticism of Obama for going to the exotic locale of Hawaii, instead of staying on “real” American soil, like Bush did.
Though that seems to be where Limbaugh and Palin also went for vacation.
I thought Bush should have said something earlier as well and shouldn’t have been given a pass. Nope, your statement wasn’t too hard for a Bush defender. I guess we all aren’t knuckle-draggin mouth-breathing idiots after all.
The GOP is full of BS, FYI, BTW. SOB.
IOKIYAR
I didn’t say it wasn’t okay to be a Republican. And I’ve certainly criticized my own party enough times in the past (which typically gets overlooked.) But it sure seems to me like the GOP sprints for the low ground with far greater alacrity.
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PAD
IOKIYAR means “It’s OK *if* you’re a Republican”, highlighting that a Republican can get away with doing or saying things for which a Democrat would be excoriated for.
Oh, is THAT what it means? I admit I was unfamiliar with the term and looked it up and just took it at face value.
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PAD
The Dems need to start strapping on a pair and responding to these comments. I agree with option B.
Oh, they are. It’s just amazing that the comments were made to be responded to at all. Wait…that’s right. It’s not amazing. It’s SOP for the GOP, and that’s the saddest part.
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PAD
The hypocrisy of the Republican party knows no bounds. They’ve demonstrated that plainly again and again.
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It’s not a trait exclusive to the right, but in terms of degree the Dems can’t even come close.
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Want to know what a Repub will do in any situation? Just see what they complained about the left doing in the exact same situation.
Maybe if Democrats had not come out and Claimed that the system was working prefectaly, when the passangers had to stop the bomber, there would have been no need for Obama to come out and try to do damage control. Any administration that says that the people on board the flight are responisble for their own security are on something (legal or Ilegal).
“Does ANYONE doubt at this point that if Gore had been in office during 9/11, the GOP–rather than asserting that the country should line up behind its president–would have been claiming that America was targeted because terrorists saw Gore as weak and would have been lobbying for investigations if not outright impeachment?”
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THANK you. This relates directly to my assertion that the proof that the “Liberal Media” is a complete myth is the fact that GWB was not driven out of office after 9/11. In fact, if I may expand on this with a little rant of my own:
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Imagine, if you can, that Al Gore had been sworn in as president in January 2001 and had spent his first eight months in office behaving exactly the way George W. Bush behaved: dicking around and taking vacations all the time, and joining his senior staff in ignoring or pooh-poohing all the counterintelligence experts who were reporting that a domestic terror attack by al-Qaeda was being planned.
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Now imagine that Gore had been standing outside an elementary school classroom on the morning of 9/11/01 waiting to commence a photo op with a group of schoolkids, and had been told that a passenger plane had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center … and Gore had decided the best use of his time would be to continue with his little photo op … and a few minutes later, his chief of staff had told him that a second plane had struck the South Tower of the WTC, which meant that the United States was under attack …
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… and Gore had just SAT there.
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Doing NOTHING.
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For SEVEN MINUTES.
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I’ll tell you exactly what would have happened in that scenario: The media would have CRUCIFIED Al Gore. Fox “News” Channel would have been leading the charge, with all the “liberal” media following in lockstep right behind, just as they did on election night 2000.
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The footage of Gore sitting there like a deer in the headlights would have been the only imagery of him we would have seen in the news for the next six months. He would have been cut no slack whatsoever. Every news story about the attacks would have been headlined GORE’S LEGACY and would have been an in-depth examination of How Gore Failed Us (and oh yeah, It Was All Clinton’s Fault, too). The legitimacy of Gore’s election victory would have been questioned as loudly as possible at every opportunity. All the media’s lies and distortions about Gore from the 2000 campaign would have been resurrected with a vengeance. Every last scrap of dirt on Gore — no matter how trivial, no matter whether or not it had any relevance to the 9/11 attacks — would have been dug up and smeared all over the front pages. The editorials demanding that Gore resign would have been outnumbered only by the editorials demanding Gore’s impeachment. The one and only media message, 24/7, would have been “AL GORE WAS ASLEEP AT THE SWITCH AND NOW THREE THOUSAND AMERICANS HAVE PAID FOR IT WITH THEIR BLOOD!!!!”
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Additionally, the Republicans in Washington would have INSTANTLY launched investigation after investigation to determine how President Gore (who stole the election with his dirty tricks, remember) could have allowed such a devastating attack to occur on American soil, and the mainstream media would have been following the proceedings with the sort of breathless anticipation usually reserved for stories about missing 25-year-old white women. In short, the Republicans and their pavlovian dogs in the media would have been screaming bloody murder, and they wouldn’t have stopped screaming until Gore had been impeached and thrown in prison — and they probably would have tried to make a case for having him executed, too, “national unity” be dámņëd. After all, the buck stops with the president, and He Must Be Held Accountable!
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Except it wasn’t Gore. It was Bush. And what happened? Bush was handled with kid gloves by the national news media. They presented no organized sense of outrage, no demands for investigations, no calls for resignation or impeachment. In fact, in very short order, it became virtually an act of treason for the media to question Bush’s competence or otherwise hold him to any standard of accountability whatsoever. Hëll, he was even PRAISED in the wake of the tragedy for his COURAGE and STEADFASTNESS and LEADERSHIP — excuse me, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
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And to this day, the “Liberal Media” is terrified of calling out the GOP for their lies and hypocrisy out of mortal fear of appearing “biased”.
Yeah, and then someone would have made a movie about how Gore was corrupt and got a bunch of Saudis out of the country and sat for those seven minutes and then… oh, wait.
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This national media that you speak of, that handled Bush with kid gloves. This would, of course, be the same national media that crucified President Bush for failing to respond to a natural disaster in a manner satisfactory to the aforementioned national media. The same national media that was so jazzed to find a memo accusing former Lt. Bush of dereliction of duty that it didn’t bother confirming the authenticity of the memo. (You remember, the forged one CBS ran?) The same national media that includes DailyKos, the Huffington Post, and God knows how many other entities that openly called for the defeat or removal of the President. The national media that more or less openly blamed Bush and the Republican Party for a business recession. (Here’s the Bush Administration in 2005 on the need to reform the housing bubble: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=24851 .)
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Bush was praised for his COURAGE and STEADFASTNESS and LEADERSHIP (here, have a paper bag) in the aftermath of the attack. Because he showed those things. He showed them when he spoke to the nation the night of the attack. He showed them when he spoke to the recovery workers a few days later. “I can hear you, the rest of the world can hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” But hey, if you’d rather think he just told people to go shopping, feel free to vomit wherever you like.
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There is, frankly, no evidence to suggest that Gore would have been pilloried by anyone. Certainly the World Trade Center attack in 1993 didn’t generate any sort of backlash against President Clinton. What I find interesting is that the same factions that blamed 9/11 on Bush (he’d been in office almost a year and his administration ignored the warning signs) are so offended that Obama is being lined up for criticism (after all, he’s only been in office a little under a year, so of course his administration can’t be expected to pick up all the warning signs). No party has a monopoly on hypocrisy; it’s endemic to politics. So is attacking straw men.
“This would, of course, be the same national media that crucified President Bush for failing to respond to a natural disaster in a manner satisfactory to
the aforementioned national media.the public he had sworn to protect.”.
There. Fixed that for ya.
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It wasn’t just the “media” that (rightly) criticized Bush’s handling of Katrina. There were vast numbers of individual citizens complaining about his obvious ambivalence toward the people in New Orleans. An honest check of Letter to Editors and online commentary would demonstrate that.
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But don’t let facts get in the way of insisting everyone in Bush’s administration was doing a heck of a job.
Here’s the Bush Administration in 2005 on the need to reform the housing bubble: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=24851
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Then why didn’t they? In 2005 Republicans held the presidency and controlled Congress. They’d just increased their majority in both houses, so why not act on the need they were so good about seeing?
Thanks, David. That’s gotta be the best laugh I’ve had all week. Happy new year!
Then why didn’t they? In 2005 Republicans held the presidency and controlled Congress. They’d just increased their majority in both houses, so why not act on the need they were so good about seeing?
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Riiiiight. Because it’s so easy to get significant reforms through the Senate these days. If you’d actually read the memo, you’d have found reference to the House actually passing a bill– Bush’s commentary was about how it was too weak of a reform. But even the weak reform died in the Senate. (Seriously, stop me if this sounds familiar at all.)
Bush’s commentary was about how it was too weak of a reform.
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Because *obviously* doing nothing is far better than doing even a minimal something.
Because *obviously* doing nothing is far better than doing even a minimal something.
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According to Howard Dean, yes.
According to Howard Dean, yes.
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And why am I supposed to care in the least about what Howard Dean thinks?
Riiiiight. Because it’s so easy to get significant reforms through the Senate these days.
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Who’s talking about these days? You were talking about 2005, when the Republicans controlled the White House and increased their majority in both houses of Congress.
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You saying even then they were no more effective than Democrats? Then what is it that you think makes them any better then Dems?
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Seriously, dude. Stick with your team. But don’t say they saw the problem and then toss up excuses as to why they didn’t get anything done when they were in control.
D the BAccording to Howard Dean, yes.
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CJR: And why am I supposed to care in the least about what Howard Dean thinks?
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Exactly. Interesting to see how David the “Bold” so rapidly jumps from claiming the Repubs saw the writing on the wall to “look, over there” when folks point out his team did nothing when they were in charge.
Who’s talking about these days? You were talking about 2005, when the Republicans controlled the White House and increased their majority in both houses of Congress.
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Um, you seem to have missed a turn in the conversation. Let’s follow the discussion so far. I pointed out that the press tended to excoriate Bush for causing the recession, notwithstanding that 1) recessions are inevitable, and 2) the thing that made this recession worse than most was a problem that Bush didn’t cause, but did identify and tried to fix. (To be fair, I only really addressed 2, but anyone with a high school understanding of economics knows 1, which seems to exclude the press.) Then you asked why the Republicans didn’t fix the problem with their massive majorities, by which I think you were implying that they didn’t really care about fixing it without actually making that argument. So I drew a parallel (really, it’s a legitimate rhetorical tool) between that issue and the issue that the Democrats clearly care about but can’t fix to their own satisfaction. The point there is that having a majority in both houses and having the White House isn’t always enough to overcome inertia in Washington, especially when entrenched interests stand to lose money by the change. Do you follow me now, or do I need to explain it again?
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You saying even then they were no more effective than Democrats? Then what is it that you think makes them any better then Dems?
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Yes, I am saying they were no more effective than the Democrats. Excellent reading comprehension, there. The Senate is designed to limit activity. Often that’s a good thing, like when the Senate guts the House Democrats’ “reforms” of the health care system. Sometimes it works out poorly, like when the Senate couldn’t even get a floor vote on a needed, but watered-down, reform of housing finance law. But you’re combining two unrelated concepts. They’re better than the Democrats because they at least pretend to believe in limited government, which I prefer, and because I prefer (with the minor exception of Iraq) conservative foreign policy to liberal foreign policy. Being philosophically better doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re more skilled at getting things passed.
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Seriously, dude. Stick with your team. But don’t say they saw the problem and then toss up excuses as to why they didn’t get anything done when they were in control.
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What excuse? The Republicans failed to fix a major problem. Now if you want to have a nice discussion about whose policies caused the problem… well, actually, both parties were besotted by the “let’s make everyone a homeowner” concept. But anyway, I’m glad to see you’ve staked yourself out on a “no excuses when your party fails” stance. We’ll talk again when the health care bill goes through the conference committee.
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CJR: And why am I supposed to care in the least about what Howard Dean thinks?
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That’s… actually a really good question. I wish more people took that position. Maybe he’d go away.
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Exactly. Interesting to see how David the “Bold” so rapidly jumps from claiming the Repubs saw the writing on the wall to “look, over there” when folks point out his team did nothing when they were in charge.
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What “look over there?” I’m the one who pointed out their failed reform. I’ll say it in capital letters: WE BLEW AN OPPORTUNITY TO FIX A PROBLEM. But hey, at least we thought it was a problem, which is another thing that makes us better than the Democrats. Again, not enough better to actually get the problem fixed, so maybe only marginally better.
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By the way, “the Bold” is a Calvin and Hobbes allusion. I thought it sounded better than “David, Boy of Destiny.”
“By the way, “the Bold” is a Calvin and Hobbes allusion.”
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Or an illusion. Why ‘the’ anything? Why not David and an initial? Or David and a last name? And it doesn’t even have to be your real initial or name. Why an affectation?
So I drew a parallel (really, it’s a legitimate rhetorical tool) between that issue and the issue that the Democrats clearly care about but can’t fix to their own satisfaction.
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No, it’s a dodge. A jump from defending your position to taking a “Look over there.” stance. Pointing out a failing on the other side is not providing support for your position.
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They’re better than the Democrats because they at least pretend to believe in limited government,
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Translation: They’re better hypocrites.
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Seriously, you’re praise for them is that they “pretend” to believe in something that they consistently work against? By that standard I could “pretend” to agree with you and then you’d have nothing but praise for my comments, right?
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CJR: And why am I supposed to care in the least about what Howard Dean thinks?
DtB: That’s… actually a really good question.
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Which was asked because you brought him up as some sort of example support your point (see above re: looking over there). And now, again, you’re backing off your own posting. YOur consistency is appreciated.
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What “look over there?” I’m the one who pointed out their failed reform. I’ll say it in capital letters: WE BLEW AN OPPORTUNITY TO FIX A PROBLEM. But hey, at least we thought it was a problem, which is another thing that makes us better than the Democrats.
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Or very much the same. Dems did exactly the same thing with healthcare. They blew an opportunity to fix what they saw as a problem.
No, it’s a dodge. A jump from defending your position to taking a “Look over there.” stance. Pointing out a failing on the other side is not providing support for your position.
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It is when my entire point is that fixing social problems is easier said than done. Pointing out that two parties, each with large majorities in both houses of Congress and control of the White House, ran into trouble addressing serious issues, supports my point nicely.
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Translation: They’re better hypocrites.
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Or better failures. Republicans generally preach limited government but succumbed to the opposite temptation when they had power under the Bush Administration. Hypocrisy is a valid criticism. Still, I’d rather back the party that has the right principles but doesn’t adhere to them consistently than the party that doesn’t even think my core political principle is a virtue. They’re the “least worst” alternative by a fair bit.
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Which was asked because you brought him [Howard Dean] up as some sort of example support your point
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Throwing the words of the Democratic Party Chairman back in the face of other Democrats isn’t so much an example as me being snarky. Let it go.
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Or very much the same. Dems did exactly the same thing with healthcare.
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I thought you said that my saying exactly that was a dodge. In any event, I agree with the parallel. In fact, I brought it up. The way I distinguish them is that I think the move to address Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac would have helped some, whereas I’m just hoping that the health care reforms don’t damage the nation too badly.
Or an illusion. Why ‘the’ anything? Why not David and an initial? Or David and a last name? And it doesn’t even have to be your real initial or name. Why an affectation?
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Whimsy?
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David the Bold: “Throwing the words of the Democratic Party Chairman back in the face of other Democrats isn’t so much an example as me being snarky. Let it go.”
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Well, the Democratic Party Chairman is Gov. Tim Kaine. Dean hasn’t held that spot for some time now. Dean is a free agent these days who runs a group called Democracy For America and the party leadership has stated that they disagreed with Dean’s comments on the health care bbill when they have them quoted at them on the chat shows.
This is nothing surprising. If Obama personally cured cancer, the next day Fox News would run reports about how the President was putting thousands of doctors out of business.
The whole incident highlights not the value/weakness of one party’s approach, but rather flaws in the system of searching for weapons and the process of sharing information.
JamesLynch says:
December 31, 2009 at 5:42 pm
This is nothing surprising. If Obama personally cured cancer, the next day Fox News would run reports about how the President was putting thousands of doctors out of business.
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Yes, then CBS, ABC, PBS, BBC, All the CNN’s All the NBC’s, NPR, would declare a national holiday and wonder if Bush was causing the cancer in the first place.
Fox news, thats it, one network in the big pool of TV land and you guys are crying foul. Could it be that Fox is really the only network people actually want to watch?
Its also funny how you seem to think this terrorism crap just happen to start when W was put into office.
How about someone go back, oh 8 to 12 years and follow the dots. The ball has been being dropped for a long, long, long time.
Yes that includes H.W. Bush too. Wow, could it be? A conservative criticizing a Repub.
Man that Fox news is really messing me up.
“Its also funny how you seem to think this terrorism crap just happen to start when W was put into office.”
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Nobody here has said that. But please continue to make up šhìŧ so you have something to argue about.
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I hear there is a sale on aluminum foil next week.
Man Alan, thats the best you can do? Aluminum foil?
No, Pat, not nearly my best, but this is (mostly) a family friendly site.
Bush was accused of “letting 9/11 happen” because intelligence agencies didn’t connect the dots in the data.
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Here, we had plenty of warning signs:
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–The guy’s father reported he was going extreme to the US, earning him a spot on watch lists.
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–The guy paid for his ticket in cash.
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–The guy didn’t have a passport.
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–The guy fit the profile six ways to Sunday of trouble.
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So, why did nobody connect the dots?
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My theory is that the intelligence community is looking at how the Obama administration is treating them — constant threats of criminal prosecution for doing their jobs under Bush — and saying “screw it, I ain’t sticking my neck out for anyone or anything.” So no one wanted to take the risk of standing out and pointing fingers (kind of like how the Fort Hood shooter’s warning signs were ignored by those afraid of looking “bigoted”).
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In the end, the government security apparatus simply failed miserably, as in the Richard Reid case, and it fell to individuals on the plane in question to take their own fate in their hands, like Reid and Flight 93.
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Blame Obama? Only indirectly. Blame Leon Panetta, the amateur Obama put in charge of the CIA. Blame Napolitano, the clueless git Obama put in charge of Homeland Security. Blame Dennis Blair, Obama’s choice for Director of National Intelligence.
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So, I guess, we can blame Obama for putting our nation’s security in their hands..
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J.
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(BTW, PAD, at Shore Leave a few years ago, when I snagged your “Peter David/David Peters” autograph on my hardcover of “Q Squared,” I grabbed a button that said “WHENEVER I GO THROUGH AIRPORT SECURITY, I GIVE THANKS RICHARD REID WASN’T KNOWN AS THE UNDERWEAR BOMBER.” I have NO idea where the hëll it is now, but I wish I did.)
“My theory is that the intelligence community is looking at how the Obama administration is treating them — constant threats of criminal prosecution for doing their jobs under Bush”
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Bad theory. The only thing that is even being *hinted* at for prosecution is activities that were illegal. This stuff is paperwork. If they thought *that* constituted “sticking out their neck” then they wouldn’t have done the talked with the father in the first place, or anything else. They’d just be sitting in their offices, shivering in fear.
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The CIA actually did add the guy to their database. The problem is that another agency is responsible for taking that information and figuring out who should be on the no fly list. They’re not set up very well and understaffed, but they had nothing to do with interrogations and aren’t under any kind of threat.
Any intelligence officer who knowingly allowed a terrorist to board a plane and try to blow it up because he was pìššëd at the President should be criminally prosecuted.
The International Spy Museum’s (spymuseum.org) most recent podcast really breaks down the problems, even indicating that there were intelligence officers ready to arrest the guy on the ground by the time he was in the air.
The problem was that it took too long to connect the dots before he was allowed on the plane. Certain foreign bureaus and agencies didn’t talk in time.
It IS Bush’s fault:
“One of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit was released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/northwest-flight-253-al-qaeda-leaders-terror-plot/story?id=9434065
American officials agreed to send the terrorist from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia, where he entered into an “art therapy rehabilitation program” and was set free,
Oh good lord.
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I really hope electric cars get better soon, I’d really like to stop sending money to Saudi Arabia.
This story has since been shown to be false
Can you cite your source?
As far as I know the story is still true. ABC news originally had another released terrorist as one of the 4 leaders but that turned out to be false.
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Though it might be wise not to blame Bush too much for this, if the reports that we just released Qais Qazli (or Qays Khazali or about a dozen other spellings. Good luck searching!), leader of the Asaib al Haq and around 100 of his followers, in exchange for the kidnapped Peter Moore and the corpses of 3 people. Rest assured we will be hearing from these guys again (not to mention the encouragement this gives to others).
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Presumably, the wise thing to do would be to keep any and all suspects incarcerated forever, lest one be blamed for anything they do in the future. And since Obama is now pushing to keep Guantanamo open until 2011 at the earliest maybe that’s the same conclusion he’s come to, at least as it refers to the folks in Gitmo.
“…keep any and all suspects incarcerated forever…”
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That’s not justice, but it is Communist Russia did with dissidents. I’d guess the ultimate solution is to keep anyone suspected of a crime in prison forever.
…lest one be blamed for anything they do in the future.
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You left that part out. Which, um, kind of loses the whole point.
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hat’s not justice, but it is Communist Russia did with dissidents.
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Not an entirely coherent sentence but I think I get what you were trying to say.
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I’d guess the ultimate solution is to keep anyone suspected of a crime in prison forever.
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Yeah…that’s kind of exactly what I said…and I assume you meant it in the exact same degree of seriousness that I did.
In all the discussion about whether Obama should be blamed, or Bush should be blamed, or the Republicans or the Democrats or the TSA…I have a wacky notion..
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Let’s blame the guy who actually tried to blow up the plane. How about it’s his fault?
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I mean, yeah, I have no idea why the hëll this guy’s name wasn’t on a no-fly list. When his own father is saying, “Watch out for my son, he’s dangerous,” then yeah, he should be flagged. But this incessant finger pointing just gets ridiculous. Whose fault was it? The bomber’s.
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PAD
You’re just saying that, Peter, to distract us from the fact that it’s really all your fault.
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Clearly your left-leaning forum here exists to give cover to terrorists.
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What? I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking, right?
Consider not only the Richard Reid incident, but then the subsequent one 3 years ago which, as a result, we are still only able to carry small containers of liquids on flights.
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So, we had not one, but TWO potential terror attacks via plane after 9/11, and both on Bush’s watch. But for the life of me I can’t recall anybody directly blaming Bush for these incidents.
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Yep, it’s all about the party behind the presidency above all else, rather than the supposed respect for the office as the GOP would demand when one of their own is sitting in the chair. What a bunch of hypocritical áššhølëš.
…and, of course, the litany of blame continues, with this cartoon by Steve Benson, as Obama takes heat for not knowing in advance that something unpredicted was going to happen.
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The difference between Obama’s vacation and “My Pet Goat” is that Obama at least acted as if he thought he ought do something.
DOYC knows I’m no fan of Obama, but until someone provides information that Obama was handed a briefing back around Thanksgiving that suggested a terrorist plot to blow up an airplane around Christmas was likely to happen within the next month and then Obama simply ignored it, I cannot believe the right-wing’s pulling their (typical) attacks on Obama. (Of course, I mean that in the sense of Marisa Tomei’s winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress; that “WTF–you’ve GOT to be kidding me” feeling.)
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Of course, one thing that’s gone somewhat unnoticed in the right-wing’s attacks is that a GOP Senator (DeMint) has put a “hold” on Errol Southers, Obama’s choice for chief of the TSA–the gov’t agency that is DIRECTLY responsible for transportation security. The “hold” has nothing to do with Southers’ qualifications but rather with Southers’ support for allowing TSA employees to unionize (something that is permitted for all other gov’t agencies but was stripped from employees of gov’t agencies placed under the control of Dep’t of Homeland Security). I say, if Obama’s being blamed at any level, then Sen DeMint shares the blame equally (Southers was nominated back in SEPTEMBER while DeMint placed his hold in early December after it appeared that Southers’ nomination was heading for a floor vote). There’s no doubt in my mind that the right-wing would be excoriating any Democrat who pulled a similar “hold” if a GOP President had named someone who had a notorious record of sexist and/or racist comments or actions (the right-wing punditry would be appalled at how the nominee’s qualifications would be seen as less important than his/her personal views or beliefs).
Well, here’s something the conspiracy buffs will chew on: http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2010/01/01/exclusive-obama-got-pre-christmas-intelligence-briefing-about-terror-threats-to-homeland.aspx
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Of course, the briefing was about as specific as the one Bush got about Al Queda determined to strike America (like, duh) and this comes from newsweek which ceased to be a good source of information quite a while ago (and will be lucky to survive the next year or two). Still, one can expect the people who defended Bush over the first report to pillory Obama over this one and the folks who pilloried Bush to defend Obama over same. And so it goes.
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As for Southers, one might hope that since he seems to have 1. violated privacy laws, 2. lied about it to congress and 3. given what I can only consider a dishonest reason for doing so, there may be legitimate reasons to hold his nomination. Having a guy in charge of the TSA who has done that is like having people in charge of the treasury who haven’t paid taxes. Oh wait…
Well, here’s something the conspiracy buffs will chew on:
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Well, the “buffs” still don’t think Obama is an American citizen, so anything like this they’ll just take and run with… hopefully right off a cliff.
Speaking as a TSA employee and NOT as TSA itself, I find Senator DeMint’s rather insulting. We CAN unionize: that cat’s out of the bag. We don’t have collective bargaining. DeMint sez that if we do, it would affect how secure the nation is and how we respond to crisis’s. I find this EXTREMELY insulting.
First, as a son and grandson of firefighters, having them (or us) have collective bargaining has nothing to do with emergency response readiness. Did collective bargaining stop the emergency responders, both fire, police, and any others, from working couragously after the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington DC? Does it stop them ANYWHERE?!?
And, second, if DeMint’s so worried about the possibility of us striking, make it illegal for us to do so. TSA employees are already listed as emergency personel, which means if if snows or something major happens, we HAVE to go to work. Some of us are even on a emergency respose team, meaning we will make it to work, even if others can’t, and we can be called up 24/7 to do so.
Holding up Sother’s nomination because we might unionize is a straw argument. Again, I’m speaking as a TSA employee and NOT as Officail TSA rep.
Ok, I’ve got to throw my two cents in here, and though I’m no more a fan of the Republicans than I am of the Democrats, I find myself having to step in and defend them a bit.
Well, defend is a poor description, just point out a few things….
First, the Dems love to bring up the fact that when someone questioned what G.W. was doing in the past they were often labeled “unpatriotic.” I agree with the Dems here that doing so was a crap thing to do. And yet, the same people don’t seem to be bothered by the fact that often those who question Obama or don’t agree with the Left’s views (example: immigration) are automatically pigeon-holed as “racists” or “small-minded, gun-toting hicks.” That’s just funny to me. You gotta love hypocrisy.
Does Fox News have Right-leaning tendacies, yup. Do many of the other networks have Left-leaning tendacies? If you answer no you’re deluding yourself. There’s a forest there, not just trees.
Now on to the New Orleans/Katrina thing, could you please stop beating this in the ground? Could it have been handled better? Of course. But one thing that everyone keeps selectively forgetting is the fact that when emergency aid workers were trying to reach those in need they were attacked. Remember the ambulances being tipped over? The gun-toting gangs that stalked the streets? I personally know people who were down there in the aftermath on cleanup crews who had to have guards. They said that hearing automatic gunfire was not an unusual thing. Why can’t the blame at least be shared with these A@@holes who took advantage of a desperate situation? Plus, it was a mandatory city-wide evac, the people were told to evacuate, were given the offer of assistance to do so, and chose not to. It sucks what they went through there at the Convention Center, but just like when someone wants to climb Mt. Everest, then gets stuck and expects someone else to risk their life to come get them, my sympathy is somewhat limited. Call me a misanthrope if you will…..(but you’ll probably just say that I don’t care about New Orleans because I’m a racist and don’t care about black people).
Now on to the current topic: is it Obama’s fault that this happened? Of course not. Like PAD said it’s the terrorist’s fault first, then that of those who slipped up on their watch to let him get as far as he did. I’m pretty sure the President wasn’t the one searching people as they got on the plane, nor was he the one who hired them or their immediate supervisors. I’ll even hazard a guess that he isn’t the one watching the “watch lists.”
At the end of the day, both sides need to stop placing blame just to advance their own political agenda. And both sides need to open up their mind a bit a stop jumping on bandwagons and riding straight down party lines.
But then again, what do I know?
And yet, the same people don’t seem to be bothered by the fact that often those who question Obama or don’t agree with the Left’s views (example: immigration) are automatically pigeon-holed as “racists” or “small-minded, gun-toting hicks.” That’s just funny to me. You gotta love hypocrisy.
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Where on this board have you seen that particular hypocrisy? I have not seen “automatic” claims of racism around here. There certainly have been claims of racism, but there have also been conversations about Obama’s head being put on the body of a wtich doctor in a poster, so that didn’t seem “automatic” as much as reasonable. I’ve seen quite a lot of criticism of Obama that didn’t end up in accusations of racism.
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For your Katrina comments, I’m not sure what you’re point is. Whether some of the people of New Orleans attacked aid workers is a separate issue from whether or not the President did his job. They’re both serious issues, but one doesn’t allow us to wave away the other.
“Now on to the New Orleans/Katrina thing… Could it have been handled better?”
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Oh, yes, it could and should have been handled better. The question is could it have been handled any worse? Absolutely not.
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“Plus, it was a mandatory city-wide evac, the people were told to evacuate, were given the offer of assistance to do so, and chose not to.”
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That’s not even close to being true. There was not enough assistance offered. There were people in retirement homes and assisted living homes who weren’t evacuated—and they did not stay there willingly, especially those who were not well enough to leave or well enough to realize the potential danger.
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And the Katrina disaster has been amplified immensely by the ineptitude of the governmental response after the hurricane was gone. With a disaster this big, the federal government has to step in and take a leadership position. Bush did not allow that to happen. And I hope he burns in Hëll for that.
Gee, what a surprise. After years of Bush being criticized for everything from the PATRIOT Act to Guantanomo to torture in order to keep us safe.Democrats are whimpering that Barack Obama is being treated unfairly and that, ludicrously, that George W. Bush didn’t get as much criticism in handling shoe-bomber Richard Reid, and that those nasty Republicans are ganging up on the poor, inexperienced president. Really, this is sounding remarkably akin to an eight year-old who thinks his older brother was given favorable treatment by the relatives. I mean, really, after over a year of the media getting tingles up their legs and giving him softball questions at press conferences full of a fawning acolytes, the best possible argument that Democrats could make right now is: “The media liked Bush better!”? Really?
Let’s consider why Bush was not lambasted in the same manner as Obama:
1.)The Richard Reid attack came almost immediately after 9/11, long before we figured out that we had other options than handing him over to law enforcement.
2.)After that came Jose Padilla, who was arrested at the Chicago airport on a mission from KSM to blow up apartment buildings in the United States. He was taken out of the criminal-justice system, declared an illegal enemy combatant, and transferred to the Charleston brig for interrogation.
The reason Obama is being savaged is that he and his crew appear to have learned NOTHING from 9/11. After all the rhetoric is sorted through it’s apparent we have one of the most incompetent, bumbling buffoons in Janet Napolitano, for example.
In fact, The more I think about the Christmas all-but-bombing, the angrier I get. At the multiple failures that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to get on the plane with explosives sewn in his underwear. And at the Obama administration’s initial, everything’s-fine-everybody-move-right-along reaction. . .
How can it be that screening technology is so lacking so long after the 9/11 Commission called for “priority attention” to detect explosives on passengers?
How can it be that our best line of defense seems to have been a combination of incompetence and bravery — incompetence by the attacker whose device failed to detonate properly, and bravery by passengers who acted so quickly to subdue him and put out the fire?
And how can it be, in the face of all this, that the administration’s communications strategy, cooked up on a conference call, was to assure us that officials were looking into things but in the meantime we should settle down?
The coverage is a result of more than the specifics of the incident or the fact that Obama had prior experiences to guide him this time around. Very clearly, Obama simply doesn’t match up favorably to his predecessor when it comes to the war on terror. Never for a moment did we doubt that Bush understood we were at war, who we were fighting, and the need to dump the criminal-justice model. We never had the sense that Bush was engaged in some grand experiment to cajole and flatter our enemies into giving up their grievances. And never did we believe the war on terror was not his top priority. Who can say that about Obama?
If Obama wants to indulge in liberal fantasies about how to “improve our image” with would-be terrorists, revert to a pre-9/11 model and give lackadaisical press conferences, so be it. But then he can’t expect to escape criticism for being . . . well . . . not George Bush.
Obama inherited this attack from Bush the Lesser.
Forgive my ignorance, but I’m hardly a world traveler. This guy got on the plane in a foreign country. At what point does it become the responsibility of Homeland Security rather than whatever local authority to say, “Hey, this guy could be bad news?”
That’s a good question with a complex answer.
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Basically, everyone has some responsibility. On our end, if we’d had him on the no-fly list then he never would have left Europe because we share that list with them. Supposedly. If that isn’t entirely true, then it should be and that’s another thing we need to make sure of. On the Nigerian end, their security is so bad he probably could have gotten a fake ID and gotten on that flight to Europe no matter what information we shared with anyone.
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Personally I’m thinking we should fix the problems that this makes apparent (like the screwed up state of the no fly list) but also accept the fact that we’ll never be 100% safe.
I think Rachel Maddow illustrated this latest round of GOP hypocrisy quite well: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show#34637162
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Jerome Maida: Let’s consider why Bush was not lambasted in the same manner as Obama: 1.)The Richard Reid attack came almost immediately after 9/11, long before we figured out that we had other options than handing him over to law enforcement.
Luigi Novi: And yet, in that press conference Rachel Maddow showed a clip of, Donald Rumsfeld said law enforcement was handling Reid. Moreover, why was Bush not lambasted for 9/11 itself? He was in office over eight and a half months before it happened, ignored warnings by the outgoing Clinton administration, and ignored intelligence that might’ve prevented it. Hypocrites like Mary Matalin try to rationalize this by saying that they “inherited” it from Clinton. Really? Does that mean that Clinton “inherited” the ’93 bombing from George H.W. Bush, given that he was only in office for just over a month when it happened?
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Jerome Maida: The reason Obama is being savaged is that he and his crew appear to have learned NOTHING from 9/11. After all the rhetoric is sorted through it’s apparent we have one of the most incompetent, bumbling buffoons in Janet Napolitano, for example.
Luigi Novi: Precisely what evidence establishes that Obama learned nothing from 9/11? The mere fact that another attempt happened? Napolitano? Well, if you could establish that Obama should’ve had some inkling before he appointed her that she was not up to the job, the please do so. By contrast, Bush openly hired cronies, and even complimented them publicly after they did less-than-stellar jobs. Obama, after all, never said, “Heck of a job, Nappy!”. He openly admitted that a failure occurred. And why criticize him for the failure of the Terrorist Watchlist, when that was created by Bush-Cheney?
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Jerome Maida: Obama simply doesn’t match up favorably to his predecessor when it comes to the war on terror. Never for a moment did we doubt that Bush understood we were at war, who we were fighting, and the need to dump the criminal-justice model.
Luigi Novi: Bush’s performance in the War on Terror says otherwise. This statement only makes sense if you deliberately ignore all that happened on his watch, beginning with 9/11 itself.
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Jerome Maida: We never had the sense that Bush was engaged in some grand experiment to cajole and flatter our enemies into giving up their grievances.
Luigi Novi: Okay. Where, when and how has Obama engaged in an attempt to flatter our enemies into giving up their grievances?
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Jerome Maida: And never did we believe the war on terror was not his top priority. Who can say that about Obama?
Luigi Novi: Anyone who looks at their records, and has trouble finding long Obama vacations, or six day lag times between terror attempts and public statements.
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Jerome Maida: If Obama wants to indulge in liberal fantasies about how to “improve our image” with would-be terrorists…
Luigi Novi: When has Obama indicated that he wishes to improve our image with terrorists?