Fruit of the Boom

For the second time in two months Federal officials failed to react to obvious indicators of an impending terrorist act, allowing a terrorist to bring his weapons close to his targets. At Fort Hood this resulted in the deaths of 12 soldiers and one civilian. The result in the second incident would almost be comical, were it not for the fact mentioned above.

What do you call the second incident and or its perpetrator? The Christmas Would Be Bomber, as Ruth Marcus has it at Real Clear Politics? Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab managed to board flight 253 in Amsterdam, bound for Detroit, with explosives sown into this underwear. I say we call him the bloomer boomer.

Fortunately his fellow passengers, apparently not employed by the Department of Homeland Security or any other federal agency, were able to see what was right in front of their eyes (Mr. Adul Mutallab was on fire). Or at least they understood what he meant when he told a flight attendant that he had an explosive device and somehow seemed to understand that the proper response was to clobber him. Maybe the lesson here is that when we chose a Secretary of Homeland Security we should pass up the former governors and pick a Dutch film director.

A lot of the post-incident commentary focused on the immediate reaction of the Obama administration, which ranged from the anemic (President Obama's dispassionate response) to the ridiculous (Janet Napolitano's statement that "the System worked."). This is only important if you think that the primary job of the President is to properly manipulate public opinion. In fact, that is his secondary job. His first responsibility is to keep Americans safe without having to rely on Dutch film directors.

Here is how Ruth Marcus puts it:

How can it be that his visa was not revoked after his own father went to U.S. authorities to report concerns about his son's radicalization? "…How can it be that, after the father's alert, the most that seems to have been done was to place Abdulmutallab's name in a database so sprawling as to be nearly useless?... How can it be that British authorities denied Abdulmutallab's request for a visa renewal -- without triggering a comparable review by U.S. officials?... How can it be that an individual passenger (a) traveling from Nigeria, with its known security lapses, (b) not checking luggage and (c) purchasing a ticket with cash was not singled out for additional screening? What did he have to do: wear a sign saying, "You might want to check my underwear"?

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 they were looking into things but in the meantime we should settle down?

I've cut out a lot of the detail in Ms. Marcus's scathing article. See the link above and read the whole thing. When the Administration loses Ruth Marcus, they are near to losing everyone.

It is surely true that President Obama inherited a defective system from his predecessor. But George W. Bush hasn't been President for nearly a year. This mess is solely Obama's responsibility. It will be a test of his Presidency whether he can improve the security system to the point that it can recognize a terrorist about to board an aircraft when the terrorist has a dozen red flags duct taped to his shirt. I predict that he will fail to do so. I wish I could believe that it is all President Obama's fault. But I don't' believe it. I think the flaw goes much deeper than that.

Comments

[caheidelberger]

...and GWB's failures in his first year allowed the 9/11 attackers to fill 3000 people and do billions of dollars of damage to the economy. Ease back on the throttle, Ken.

[George Mason]

Cory; To paraphrase Obama, Bush inherited a mess created by Clinton. The Clintonites created the rules blocking the FBI and CIA from sharing the information that may have averted 9/11. (Some believe this was done to avoid the revelation of Clintons deals with the Chinese.)Bush rectified this through the Patriot Act (flawed though it may be). Obama wants to dismantle the Patriot Act. That along with the pre-9/11 approach to dealing with terrorists will leave us vulnerable. The question for Obama is how come his pledge to close Gitmo didn't result in the cessation of terrorist activity that he promised it would?

[KB]

Cory: instead of staring at my dashboard, maybe you should look at the road. I limited direct criticism of the President to his initial reaction. You will acknowledge that that was a disaster? I also indicate that G.W. shares the blame, and that the problem goes deeper than the present Administration.

It is indicative that the Obama Administration and its defenders still want to talk more about the Bush Administration than about the issues at hand. After a year, this indicates a serious avoidance problem.