Patterico's Pontifications

12/27/2009

Northwest bomb plot: Better to keep Obama quiet?

Filed under: General — Karl @ 10:36 am



[Posted by Karl]

NRO’s Jim Geraghty faults Pres. Obama’s silence in the wake of the thwarted attempted terror bombing of Northwest flight 253 over Detroit:

At some point, a strategy insisting that unsuccessful attacks are not worth presidential comment starts looking like whistling past the graveyard, or pretending that the incidents aren’t a big deal when they are.

Geraghty linked The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, who suggested the silence is a strategy designed to avoid giving Fahrenheit 9/11-esque fodder to his critics.

Ambinder may have a point. Had the entire administration been able to remain silent, its supporters would have found (as non-supporter Patrick Ruffini did) that Pres. George W. Bush did not make a statement after Richard Reid’s thwarted shoe-bombing in 2001. Indeed, lefties could have reverted to blaming the Bush administration for not plugging known security holes in the system.

But the entire Obama administration did not have the luxury of remaining silent. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s comment that “the system worked” not only blunts any attempt to blame the Bush administration, but is so at variance with the facts that it will promote the idea that the administration’s terrorism policy is based on magical thinking.

Indeed, as Erick Erickson points out, the failed attack on Northwest flight 253 was attempted by a man of wealth, privilege and education — directly contrary to Pres. Obama’s rhetoric that terrorism is spawned by poverty and ignorance. That is as good a reason as any for Obama to stay mum about the failed attack. As Mark Twain once observed, “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”

–Karl

31 Responses to “Northwest bomb plot: Better to keep Obama quiet?”

  1. Breaking: <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2415847/posts&quot; Plane surrounded at Detroit Airport–CBS Radio. [new incident]

    Official Internet Data Office (7735a9)

  2. Napolitano makes Tom Ridge look like President of MENSA International.

    GeneralMalaise (a38f27)

  3. Bit late for Barry in the “doubt-removing” dept and Jimmy Nap was a non-starter in the first place.

    Gazzer (d98659)

  4. Don’t jump to conclusions over Nidal Hasan incident. Not necessarily terrorism. Prior investigation into Nidal Hasan squelched due to political correctness.

    Northwest Flight 253 incident failed due to faulty detonator enabled by onboard terrorist but somehow in Administration’s view system worked?

    Solid B+.

    They do think we are stupid.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  5. They do think we are stupid.

    When people don’t know what the hell they’re doing, what they do do makes the people watching think things like that, yes.

    chaos (9c54c6)

  6. Cash For Clunkers – The System Worked

    Porkulus Bill – The System Worked

    32 Unvetted Csars – The System Worked

    Firing Gerald Walpin – The System Worked

    Dismissing Black Panther Voter Intimidation Sanctions – The System Worked

    daleyrocks (718861)

  7. When people don’t know what the hell they’re doing, what they SAY makes the people watching think things like that, yes.

    chaos – Fixed that for you.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  8. Speech is no longer an action?

    chaos (9c54c6)

  9. The incident today at Detroit is the same flight. They are saying it isn’t terrorism but I would wait a while before accepting that. Some of these incident, like the Flying Imams, are dry runs.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  10. Oh, great. Now those racist, Islamophobe Hollanders are profiling every Nigerian.

    nk (df76d4)

  11. I’m uncomfortable with any criticism of the president on this incident. This was a clever attempt to make America and him look bad and to spread panic and dissent and I rally to his side in times of attack on our country

    EricPWJohnson (9b7688)

  12. “Speech is no longer an action?”

    chaos – First and second half of your statment were redundant. Of course if they don’t know what their doing what they do looks stupid. In the post, the Napolitano video reinforces the stupidity. Q.E.D.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  13. “I’m uncomfortable with any criticism of the president on this incident.”

    — EricPWJohnson

    I’m not. We, the nation including republicans, criticized Bush for Michael Brown and Harriet Meirs. They weren’t up to the job. Napolitano’s statement that the system worked because there was a faulty detonator and an active Dutch defender; worked because afterward the bureaucracy responded; make it completely clear she’s not up to the job. Holder’s stiffing the Black Panther investigation and moving the trial of terrorists to NYC make it clear he’s not up to the job. I am afraid I don’t care about your discomfort. Obama has appointed obstructive incompetents. Bush appointed, or tried to appoint, incompetents. We’re supposed to give Obama a pass for doing somewhat worse than we crapped on Bush for doing?

    Simon Kenton (3d943d)

  14. Karl or DRJ — post this link as an update.

    “The system worked” — DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano

    Is this her “Great Job Brownie” moment?

    How can it not be?

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/1209/Napolitano_The_system_worked.html?showall

    WLS Shipwrecked (3d3fb8)

  15. It remains to be seen, as Ambinder insists, whether Obama’s silence is part of some cunning strategy. However, like other aspects of his policy toward fighting terrorism, it simply makes it appear that it’s something he finds distateful (see also decisions on Afghanistan).

    As for Napolitano…well, clearly she thinks Americans are idiots. Certainly anyone who believes her assessment of the situation is reasonable is an idiot.

    the wolf (7cffb6)

  16. Dear Ms. Napolitano,

    The system did not work. A bomb failed to work. Unless … oh, my gosh … the Al Qaeda bomb-maker is a mole working for the Department of Homeland Security.

    nk (df76d4)

  17. WLS Shipwrecked,

    I already linked to “the system worked,” with the video, via HotAir.

    Karl (cc4af5)

  18. Gosh, was I ever proud to call her governor when I lived in AZ. In that CNN interview she says that the passengers were a part of the “system” that worked. My question is: Are they going to receive checks from the Dept of Homeland Security, for doing their part as part of the system? Or is this what Prez Bee Ho meant by “public service”?

    Icy Texan (315fcf)

  19. Kark — missed the link when i glanced at your post. Thanks

    WLS Shipwrecked (3d3fb8)

  20. Icy Texan,

    You don’t understand deep cover. All the passengers on that flight, other than the terrorist, were ostensibly employees of businesess set up by the Department of Homeland Security, but in reality superbly trained secret agents with a license to kill who like their Vodka Martinis stirred not shaken.

    nk (df76d4)

  21. This was a clever attempt to make America and him look bad

    Probably a lot more of the former than the latter. If anything, having a person of so-called Third-World ancestral background — and, better yet, a socio-political pushover towards non-Western-World/non-industrialized-world societies, and their enablers like Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, the PLO — in the White House at this moment in history makes the fanatics of the Islamic world a wee bit more standoffish in trouncing the US.

    Mark (411533)

  22. Here’s an update on today’s disruption on Northwest Flight #253. They say it was a coincidence but I’m leery like Mike K.

    DRJ (84a0c3)

  23. President Obama–appointing tax cheats, lobbyists, extreme socialists, and morons is no way to staff a Cabinet, nor to go through life.

    Mike Myers (3c9845)

  24. “I’m leery”

    Me too, Mike K. and DRJ. Feds could have found explosives strapped to, or inside the body of the “bathroom Nigerian” and they would never publicly acknowledge it right now. They are too busy trying to make terrorism seem not a problem and cover their asses. We should believe nothing we are told on this subject.

    elissa (05a195)

  25. Your skepticism must be contagious. I came here to cough and say under my breath “bulshit”.

    sybilll (81f04d)

  26. They will respond to this incident with lightning rapidity. How ? Why by punishing passengers who will have to remain in their seats with no personal items (laptops, iPods, etc) in use for the last hour.

    Then, when the imam tells the next bomber to see off his underwear 1 1/2 hours before landing, we will be allowed to sit there for two hours, then….

    Mike K (2cf494)

  27. The “system” works so well that the policy of this administration is to allow the non-union TSA to unionize.

    AD - RtR/OS! (55853a)

  28. Comment by Mike K — 12/27/2009 @ 2:52 pm

    It looks like that they’re starting to walk-back (a bit) the 1-hour rule that they put up; it’s now just for International flights, but still totally meaningless in any significant effort to combat terrorism.
    Individual profiling is the only solution; they know it, but are scared shitless of the lawsuits that the ACLU and CAIR will file.

    AD - RtR/OS! (55853a)

  29. They are CAIR and the ACLU, AD.

    nk (df76d4)

  30. Yes, I know, but the great majority of the “middle” who voted for this POS are completely unaware of that, and Teh One and his enablers must maintain that illusion at all costs.

    AD - RtR/OS! (55853a)


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