Under Obama National Security Takes a Backseat to … Well, Everything

Posted on 29. Dec, 2009 by James Devere in American Politics

Barack Obama’s national security policy of making them like us has lead to the failures at Ft. Hood, and Northwest flight 253.  Intelligence is not a priority, as demonstrated by the Administration’s attacks on those in our intelligence community.

Today, President Obama took to the airwaves for the second time in two days to address security concerns that have arisen following the Christmas Day attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight.  Obama addressed the country yesterday for the first time, three days after the attack.  In his Monday comments, the President updated the American people with information that had already been widely reported by the mainstream media prior to his speech.  Today, the President saw fit to report on events “of the last 24 hours,” most of which were available to the public well before his first speech. Below are some quotes from today’s speech.

“I wanted to speak to the American people again today, because some of this preliminary information that has surfaced in the last 24 hours raises some serious concerns. It’s been widely reported [for the past two days] that the father of the suspect in the Christmas incident warned U.S. officials in Africa about his son’s extremist views.”

“It now appears that weeks ago this information was passed to a component of our intelligence community but was not effectively distributed so as to get the suspect’s name on a no-fly list”. (Also widely reported for two days and not mentioned in Obama’s prior speech.)

“There appears to be other deficiencies, as well. Even without this one report, there were bits of information available within the intelligence community that could have and should have been pieced together.” (Again, information reported by the media a day prior to the President’s first speech.)

As a speech to “inform the American people,” neither speech lived up to the billing.  So what is the purpose of the back-to-back speeches?  The first was not received well in the media or in the electorate.  The second speech was most likely a result of polling data and crafted to show some strength.    A clue to this is in a statement that has been repeated by various Administration officials over the past few days.  There is no blame to be put on the people that are in charge of our security.  No, the blame goes to the system: “It’s becoming clear that the system that has been in place for years now is not sufficiently up to date” Obama stated.

Obama and his Administration are the victims of a system created during the previous Administration.  Did the learning curve and any process of improvement stop with the last Administration?  The “blame Bush” excuse has been bantered about for the last 11 months, not to mention the year long campaign rhetoric.  Obama could have looked like a leader by owning a system that has had failures and successes.

If a car not properly maintained and driven incompetently by a cabinet member crashes, is it the previous Administration’s fault if they purchased the car?  It is ridiculous, but somehow the same logic is accepted by the mainstream media as a plausible excuse for the continued failures of our leaders.

Some would say that the first job of the President is to ensure the security of the country.  Yet, a look at what has consumed the political spectrum over the past 11 months shows where the President has placed his priorities.  We have had a 1007 page stimulus, a 2700 page health bill, taken over two car companies and a handful of banks, we have limited compensation in the private sector, and have held beer summits, we have attended climate summits and made sweeping changes to the Clean Air Act, and lobbied for the Olympics, but nobody has thought to review the processes by which we add terrorists to the no-fly list.  And why should they? It is our policy to be liked by the terrorists.

Tags: Backseat, Barack Obama, Billing, Christmas, Christmas Day, Deficiencies, Extremist Views, Fly, Ft Hood, Intelligence Community, Mainstream Media, National Security Policy, Northwest Airlines, Northwest Airlines Flight, Northwest Flight, Priority, Quotes, Second Time, Security Concerns, Serious Concerns