Obama’s Vacation Isn’t The Reason To Complain

There’s much derision being thrown at President Walking Eagle for being in Hawaii when a terrorist tried to blow up a flight to Detroit.  Even some of the most respected and sourced conservative pundits are making a big deal about the fact that the image Obama portrays is that his cronies and his golf game are more important to him than the safety of the American people.

While I personally belive that His Transparency never had and never will have the best interests of anyone except himself in his alleged heart, I am not so sure crucifying him for staying at his vacation location is entirely warranted.  First reason is that, as our employee, he does have the right to take some time off.  (“It’s Christmas, for God’s sake!”)  That he chooses to do so at great taxapayer expense during a recession, in contrast to GW, who spent his time away from Washington either at Camp David or his own ranch in Texas, is an argument for another day.  As long as he remains accessible to the information required to do his job should there be a crisis like that created by Numbnuts Abdulmutallab, Obama staying put is no different than any of us who remain “on call” for our jobs.

I know, I know; it’s tough to be a realist and sometimes even tougher to be fair.  And certainly his pathetic little attempts to address the matter from Hawaii, from not being told about the incident until two hours after it happened (in contrast to being awakened when word came of his Nobel Peace prize nomination) to not making a public statement for three days because he allegedly doesn’t want to give terrorists more attention than they deserve (in contrast to immediately sticking his nose into trivial matters like his friend, Professor Gates’, bad behavior) have done nothing to reassure Americans that the right choice was made by electing him to be our President. 

But such is life, dear readers.  Such is life.  As it has been said, you’ve got the government you deserve.  Deal with it.  Try to find the bright side because I believe there is one and it will continue to provide more of the figurative rope this administration is using to hang itself.

The real issues come in the form of continuing to knee-jerk parrot the tired old “blame Bush” rhetoric – after having an entire year of control over America’s Homeland Security.  After having a full year of privileged intelligence briefings and the opportunity for real insight into the workings of American counter-terrorism.  As was demonstrated so horribly on Christmas Day, there has been little real effort or progress made in this area.  I’d say this is  mostly because Obama is the kind of person who can never be bothered with details and so claims the authority while passing the buck on the responsibility, even when he chooses the wrong people for a job.  Most assuredly, Janet Incompetano has some explaining to do.  As do a whole lot of people in the State Department, the CIA, etc., etc., etc.  And when their ignorance or their deliberate mistakes are finally understood, the inconvenient truth is that Obama’s gonna own it – sympathetic preogressive liberal lock, stock, and barrel. 

That ain’t gonna be pretty and I can almost understand wanting to hide my head in the sun-drenched sand and sing “Mele Kalikimaka”.

Already, the heat of the facts are starting to build.  The following little summary comes from USA Today (bad punctuation theirs, not ours):

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, spent a month at an al-Qaeda compound north of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, where he completed training alongside a Saudi al-Qaeda bomb-maker.

Little noted is the fact that the second in command of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula— the group that reportedly trained and deployed Abdulmutallab for his mission to attack the American homeland — is a released Guantanamo detainee:  Said Ali al-Shihri.  While al-Shihri’s specific role has not been determined, it is increasingly clear that the terrorist network he helps lead was behind the attempted Detroit attack.

Known to Guantanamo officials as Detainee No. 372, al-Shihri was captured on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in December 2001. He denied being a terrorist and claimed to have traveled to Afghanistan two weeks after the 9/11 attacks to deliver money for the Red Crescent.   At Guantanamo, he told officials that he had never even heard of al-Qaeda until he arrived in Guantanamo, and declared that “Usama bin Laden had no business representing Islam.”  He promised that if released he would return to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, reunite with his family and work in their used furniture store.

Despite evidence that he had trained in an al-Qaeda camp north of Kabul, he was released in 2007 to a Saudi rehabilitation program.  But al-Shihri never became a furniture salesman. Instead, last January, he appeared in a series of jihadist videos identified as al-Qaeda’s second in command on the Arabian Peninsula.  The New York Times reported that he is “suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa,” in September 2008.

President Walking Eagle and his administration refuse to connect any dots and have dug in their heels that they will continue with plans to empty and close the Guantamo Bay.  They feel that its symbolism trumps having martyrs to the jihadist cause out running around actively recruiting others to both continue their attempts to destroy America and to pay us back for their having been caught trying to do so.  Ah, the audacity of pride.

Facts: 

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is led by two former Guantanamo detainees who reportedly were released to Saudi Arabia from Guantanamo in 2007 and were set free after completing a controversial “rehabilitation program.”

All the suspects convicted of being involved in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole have also either been released by Yemeni authorities or managed to escape in a jailbreak. 

Which, of course, perfectly explains why the administration can make the following statement with a straight face:

“Our policy is, as consistent with the law, that we’ll make transfers, we’ll notify Congress of the transfers, that we’ll make transfers consistent with our national security interests. And we believe that each of those that we have done so far enhances our national security.”

Hark, is that again the sound of the beating wings of flying pigs?  Ask the passengers on Northwest Airlines Flight 253.