Since the Christmas day bombing, it's been popular to trash Obama for his administration's failure to thwart the attack; a failure of intelligence.
Just a little flash-back, here are some responses from Bush administration officials to the attack on 9/11:
"What you have are some folks trying to do -- and unfortunately in a fairly accusatory way -- take the benefit of 20-20 hindsight with pre-9/11 information and trying to impart upon it a post-9/11 wisdom," Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge.
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people...would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Yet we came to find out that:
"During the spring and summer of 2001, U.S. intelligence agencies received a stream of warnings that al Qaeda planned something very, very, very big," the report of the 9/11 Commission concluded, with an executive summary noting that: "Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet told us, "The system was blinking red.'''
So, now, Dick Cheney, the largest proponent of the Iraq War, which was supported by “intelligence” linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11 and weapons of mass destruction, has lashed out at the President:
"As I've watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won't be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won't be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won't be at war," the Cheney said in a statement to Politico.
Over and over, this mantra is being repeated in various forms across the media world of regurgitation. Rarely (if at all), does anyone point out that the Bush administration's world-changing failure to heed pre-9/11 intelligence. Or (since many talking heads will point out that 9/11 changed everything) that we are still in a war that Cheney promoted after 9/11, based completely on what we now know was false intelligence!
On August 26, 2002, Cheney declared: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."
In contrast, Obama had this to say about his administration's failure:
"The system has failed in a potentially disastrous way," Obama said. "The bottom line is this: the U.S. government had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot and potentially disrupt the Christmas Day attack. But our intelligence community failed to connect those dots, which would have placed the suspect on the no-fly list."
Wait a second...hold the phone. Our President, rather than deflecting the blame has admitted failure. And we do what? We attack him!
As someone who admittedly did not vote for Obama, I think it is safe to assume that Obama really does want to keep America safe. I applaud him for having the fortitude to admit failure.
