The United States was attacked on Christmas Day in what turned out to be a failed attempt at blowing up an aircraft. The response from the Obama people was disjointed and insincere. Obama was informed of the attack a few hours after it happened and he responded three days later. Some folks have made a big deal about the time it took to respond but that is not as important as what was said when the response actually arrived. Obama contradicted his Homeland Defense Secretary and became increasingly irate at the accusations that he was weak. Regardless of how long Obama waited to respond the real problem was that his response looked more like damage control than national security.
George Bush did not respond until six days after the shoe bomber made his fatal attempt. I do not know if there were legal reasons (the shoe bomber is an American citizen and perhaps they could not make statements that would jeopardize the investigation) or if the White House Press Secretary said anything prior to Bush. When Bush finally addressed it I don’t recall it being about damage control. I just remember that I had to start taking my shoes off every time I went through airport security.
News for TSP, I am not taking my underwear off because of this incident…
Regardless of the time involved, Obama should have been more concerned with the incident and not worried about damage control and he should not have had to clean up the gaffes of his DHS Secretary. Obama and his people (including his media wing at the MSM) should have spent less time defending how long it took Obama to say something with childish comparisons to how long it took Bush and spent more time telling people how they would be kept safe and at the same time inconvenienced as little as possible during the heavy holiday travel period.
One thing that Obama and his people were quick about responding to were the attacks on Obama. Team Obama responded nearly instantaneously when Dick Cheney came out with his criticisms of Obama. Dick Cheney is not a threat to airline safety, terrorists with underpants bombs are. If it took three days to address the real threat it should have taken longer to address Cheney. It should have taken longer to address the other criticisms leveled at the Obama administration. I think Cheney was spot on but that does not mean he could not be ignored by the administration until after they addressed the threat.
By taking its time with addressing the threat but responding in near real time to criticisms the Obama team comes off as being in campaign mode and not in leadership mode. Being president is a tough job no matter who is in there and if it takes them a while to address a situation then when they do address it they should look like they know what is going on. Obama was hurt by the ineptitude of Napolitano. That made them look more inept and added fuel to the fire.
We have already figured out that Obama does not do anything regarding leading the country quickly. It has taken him days or months to come to decisions (except for the crisis spending bills) and while his supporters like to claim he is a deliberative person he does not appear as such when he is able to immediately respond to criticism.
It also did not help the cause for Obama to say; “We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable” and then leave his press conference to play golf. I realize he is on vacation so it might have been prudent to maybe leave that “we will not rest” part out of the speech and save it for a time when he is not, you know, resting…
The left was quick to point out George Bush discussing the seriousness of the terrorism threat while playing golf but remain silent about Obama’s very similar situation.
Sources:
Washington Examiner
Swamp Politics
UPDATE: Excellent article by Charles Krauthammer.
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