Leon Panetta

Experience Matters – December 2009 Update

by Bill O'Connell on December 29, 2009

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For the second time in two months there has been a terrorist attack or an attempted attack on U.S. soil.  How is this administration responding?  Well, if grandma is planning to visit the family for the next holiday and she has a bladder problem, she had better drive or take the train, because she won’t be allowed to use the bathroom during the last hour of an airplane flight.  Whew!  That was close.  I feel so much better now that we kept grandma from flying.  Don’t you feel safer?

Who’s Minding the Store?

As pointed out in several other posts, Barack Obama was elected with zero executive experience and we hold our breath as he stumbles about trying to learn what an executive is supposed to do.  He put Janet Napolitano in charge of the Homeland Security department, because her home state borders on Mexico, but without any security experience.  This was put on full display when she went on the Sunday talk shows to say the administration response to the terrorist bomber went very well and then goes on the Monday morning news shows to say they failed.  President Obama put Leon Panetta in charge of the CIA even though he has no intelligence experience.  Feeling a little uncomfortable?

Planning to Fail

President Obama has taken just about every step he can to dismantle what Bush and Cheney put in place and to discredit how they kept us safe.  Even today, Obama insiders were whispering to the Washington Post that this was all Bush’s fault.  Let’s look at the Obama record:

  • Closing Guantanamo — this is one of Obama’s top priorities.  Rather than keep these enemy combatants off shore and in military hands, as any battlefield captives should be held, he is planning to release Yemenis back to Yemen.  Where did the bomber obtain instructions?  That’s right Yemen.
  • Curtail Interrogation techniques — calling a technique that has no lasting physical effects on prisoner torture, and requiring that prisoners be asked only name, rank and serial number, this administration cuts off sources of valuable information that can save lives.
  • Calling the War on Terror, the Overseas Contingency Operation and changing us from a war footing to a law and order footing.
  • Letting the bomber lawyer up — instead of treating the bomber as a foot soldier in the War on Terror he is treated like some delinquent trying to knock over a Seven Eleven.  We should be putting him under intense interrogation to find out everything we can from him on the operation behind him.  Instead we are reading him Miranda rights, getting him a lawyer, putting him in one of the best burn center hospitals in the country, and planning to give him skin grafts.  I guess he’s part of the new health care plan.

Correctness or Political Correctness

Profiling works.  When are we going to stop ignoring this simple fact?  Look at any one of the known terrorist attacks around the world.  When someone gets on line at an airport who fits the profile of a young, male, single, Middle Eastern, African or South Asian, then pull them out of the line and give them a more thorough screening.  Pat them down.  Swab every bag for explosive residue rather than a sampling, open and examine closely everything.  Don’t say we can’t check this one because we have already checked two others and until we check our quota of old men, white grandmas, Asian children, etc. we cannot check another Middle Eastern man because we may hurt their feelings.

If enough of them get their feelings hurt, maybe all the other fair minded and peace loving Muslims around the world will rise up and take back their faith from those who have hijacked it for their own murderous aims.  Until then, we should err on the side of caution and pray that this administration figures out what they are doing to protect us.  If they don’t know what to do they should leave what Bush and Cheney did well enough alone.  It kept us safe for seven years.

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Obama’s Unraveling

by Bill O'Connell on January 6, 2009

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I was wondering how long it would take for Barack Obama’s lack of experience or a power base to manifest itself, but it appears the moment has arrived, and the problems keep coming.

His recent announcement or leak by his aides that Leon Panetta is his choice for head of the CIA is confounding, to say the least.  Panetta may be a nice man, and a good administrator, but in the midst of the War on Terror who but a rookie would put a rookie as head of the CIA?  Apparently Obama couldn’t push back those on the left who want no one who agrees with the Bush Administration in the post.  Two other potential appointees got hooted down by Obama’s supporters so he had to go with this pick.  The CIA is notorious for not liking outsiders.  Panetta has no intelligence experience, other than listening in on security briefings as Clinton’s Chief of Staff.

Bill Richardson withdraws his name from nomination as Commerce Secretary, due to a gathering scandal.

Eric Holder as Attorney General pick approved pardons for the FALN terrorists while working in the Clinton Justice Department and now he is responsible for prosecuting terrorists.

The Blagojevich scandal doesn’t want to go away and now the Democrats are battling over whether or not they will seat the man appointed to replace Obama in the Senate

We have the Coleman/Franken fiasco in Minnesota; Charlie Rangel under investigation for not paying taxes despite being chairman of the committee that writes the tax laws (Ways and Means); an item in the NY Times about a donation to the Clinton library from an individual who benefited from legislation supported by Hillary Clinton…

How long before the press decides the honeymoon is over?

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