Moe Lane

Mind you, you wouldn’t know that from the Washington Post’s article on the arrest of John Kiriakou.  While the Washington Post – from appearances, somewhat reluctantly – reported that Kiriakou (a former CIA officer and Senate Foreign Affairs staffer) had been arrested for revealing names, operations and investigations to the media back in 2008-2009, the paper completely neglected to mention who Kiriakou ended up working for – which is to say, Senator John Kerry (D, MA).  Oddly enough, the Washington Post managed to simultaneous note that “[t]he committee had not been aware of the criminal probe of Kiriakou, according to a former U.S. official familiar with the matter” in its article, while unaccountably mentioning that Kiriakou has been leaking classified information publicly for years – including to the, well, Washington Post.  One can only guess why a premiere Left-Establishment paper would be so eager to whitewash the record when it comes to protecting prominent Left-Establishment politicians… like, say, John Kerry, who is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee (at least until next January)… (more…)

…(no relation) on the vicious attempts by Democrats to smear Tea Partiers as ‘terrorists.’ Note that Charles Lane does not actually agree with the Tea Party, but manages to tell the difference between them and, say, people who try to murder civilians with nail bombs and rat poison; something that the Left seems to be having (deliberate) trouble with these days.  However, there’s this howler:

…[liberals] are surely correct to condemn such ugly rhetorical excesses as the Obama-is-Hitler placards that flowered across the land in the summer of 2009.

Indeed.  LaRouche Democrats were unwelcome interlopers in the Tea Party movement… (more…)

…for that matter, so am I.

‘These people’ being the media, and their contemptible willingness to accept a double standard when it comes to violent rhetoric.  After screaming for so long about every possible hint of a suggestion of a possibility of violent speech from the Right, it’s amazing what will be forgiven when it comes from the Left:

Tom Friedman — who knows a bit about Hezbollah — calls the tea partiers the “Hezbollah faction” of the GOP bent on taking the country on a “suicide mission.” All over the place, conservative Republicans are “hostage takers” and “terrorists,” “terrorists” and “traitors.” They want to “end life as we know it on this planet,” says Nancy Pelosi. They are betraying the founders, too. Chris Matthews all but signs up for the “Make an Ass of Yourself” contest at the State Fair.  Joe Nocera writes today that “the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests.” Lord knows what Krugman and Olbermann have said.

Then last night. on the very day Gabby Giffords heroically returns to cast her first vote since that tragic attack six months ago, the Vice President of the United States calls the Republican Party a bunch of terrorists.

Regardless, No one cares.

(more…)

Via Hot Air:

Hell, switch ‘em out with half the punditocracy in this country and we’d come out ahead.  I mean, you expect some of this stuff from an eight year old; it’s only when it comes out of the mouth of a thirty-something Ivy League journo-drone that you start wincing.

Pajamas Media took a survey of various European media sources and their evolving reaction to the Osama bin Laden excision.  It will not surprise anyone in the slightest to hear that the level of disapproval has been increasing all week, with many an envious sneer along the way.  The German response is particularly telling  (they’re usually a leading indicator of Left-wing antiwar thinking*): even the center-right (hah!) magazines want international tribunals and investigations and whatnot.  So we should probably see the first calls for that over here in about… a week or so.  Probably followed with the leaking of the SEAL team’s names by some fellow-traveler in the Executive Branch with a grudge against the military and an iPad, so I hope that the SEALs are taking my advice and getting a lawyer now.

I’m also going to give some free advice to the White House: and I actually hope that they’ll take it, because this is an American issue, not a Right/Left, Republican/Democrat, or Competent/Incompetent one.  Let’s just say that I don’t really care what’s on the tapes that we’re suddenly now saying that we don’t actually have.  This is because I’m reasonably sure that there’s nothing drastically awful on them, given that they weren’t suppressed from the get-go: so there’s nothing like an actual noncombatant being molested or shot out of hand or anything like that.  If there is something like that on them then I would have to wonder why the administration didn’t react with horror at the time, but never mind that right now: the point is, I expect that the video record doesn’t show an actual atrocity. (more…)

I was looking for fodder for a couple of light and fluffy posts, but I probably shouldn’t let this pass by without comment.

In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan — Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism — responds to critics of the Obama administration’s counterterrorism policies by saying “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.”

The title of the op-ed is “We need no lectures” – which, given the fact that this administration rather stupidly read a foreign terrorist his Miranda rights, and has been trying to wiggle out of the consequences of it ever since, is self-evidently not true – is ably enough pushed back on here and here by AoSHQ, so I’ll just repeat something that I’ve written before.  The oddity of the current administration is that it’s as if the Democrats went out and found somebody who was just like what they thought George W Bush was – only, in this case?

It’s all true.

Weird.

Moe Lane

A quick survey of priorities:

• In 2001, the American government’s response to a successful series of terrorist attacks was to look outwards to see who to hit for this*.
• In 2009, the American government’s response to an only-because-we-got-lucky unsuccessful terrorist attack was to look inwards to see who to blame for this. (H/T: Nice Deb)

I think that, all things considered, I prefer the first approach.

Moe Lane

*To somewhat purify the Onion’s point.

Crossposted to RedState.

Slapdash, or scaredy-cat?  Does it matter?

The lack of self-respect in the Obama administration astounds me, sometimes.  From the (probably-now abortive) pushback on the call to shut down repatriating AQ terrorists to Yemen:

“I am aware of a lot of people pointing back at the way the transfers were handled under the Bush administration that apparently they have some concerns about that,” said the official, who had not seen the senators’ letter. “I didn’t hear many of those concerns at the time, but there were obviously hundreds and hundreds of detainees that were transferred under the old regime.”

The official hadn’t also seen Sen. Feinstein’s (D) own shared concern about said repatriation, which as Ed Morrissey notes is a serious problem for the drive to close Gitmo.  But never mind that, right now: what gives with all the unforced errors?  I mean, if this was an unintentional attempt to give offense, it’s pretty sloppy thinking; and if it was intentional, well, way to go with putting words in the administration’s mouth there, Sparky.  A true progressive would have had the elementary courage to put his or her Bush Derangement Syndrome on the record.

Well, either way I can’t say that I’m surprised.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

(Via Instapundit) There’s a lot of meat in this post about How The System Worked, but what struck/disquieted me was this almost-casual observation:

Al Qaeda seems to have a lot of respect for US border security screening.  That’s why it is trying to commit terrorist attacks on US soil without actually entering the US.  Since border measures were strengthened after 9/11, al Qaeda has tried three separate plots using the same basic technique — get on a transatlantic flight and blow it up before it lands and before the terrorists are put through our border screening process.  Every plot has failed.  But if this doesn’t remind you of the successive World Trade Center attacks, you’re not paying attention.  They’ve got a schtick, and they’re going to keep using it until it works.

You ever hear what the IRA once told the British? “We only have to be lucky once. You have to be lucky all the time.” That’s how terrorists think: stop them nineteen times and they’ll keep coming back for a twentieth bite at the apple.  That doesn’t mean that they can’t be deterred or suppressed; but you can’t do either by waiting for them to commit a crime and then arrest them all.  You do either by finding them and killing everybody who doesn’t surrender, and by detaining the ones who do so that you can interrogate them and get more intelligence about their compatriots still remaining alive and at liberty.

We don’t let cops do that in this country.  We don’t want cops to be able to do that in this country.  Given the way that the Left has indirectly encouraged this country’s growing acceptance of torture, one wonders why they seem so determined to also encourage the American people to think that it’s necessary to let cops be able to do that.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

In fairness, that money was just sitting there, all fat, dumb and happy, and practically begging to be misappropriated to some domestic pork program.  Besides, how was Dodd supposed to know that international terrorists would come up with the novel idea of using explosives to try to blow up airplanes?

Now that our attention is focused on airline security measures thanks to the failed airline attack on Christmas Day, it’s worth mentioning that one Senator took money away from aviation security to line the pockets of constituency that supported his presidential campaign in a big way.

Back in July, Senator Chris Dodd, D-Conn., proposed an amendment reducing aviation security appropriations by $4.5 million in favor of firefighter grants — a notoriously inneffective program. In fact, the money was specifically “for screening operations and the amount for explosives detection systems.”

…oh, wait.

Via Jim Geraghty, who notes that the Senate in general signed off on the amendment (S.AMDT.1458 to H.R.2892; it was part of the Homeland Security appropriations bill).  This is fostering an atmosphere where you have the ability to read and assess bills before you sign them is so critically important…

…oh, wait.

Moe Lane (more…)

Pick somewhere easily accessible via train.

In the wake of the terrorism attempt Friday on a Northwest Airlines flight, federal officials on Saturday imposed new restrictions on travelers that could lengthen lines at airports and limit the ability of international passengers to move about an airplane.

The government was vague about the steps it was taking, saying that it wanted the security experience to be “unpredictable” and that passengers would not find the same measures at every airport — a prospect that may upset airlines and travelers alike.

But several airlines released detailed information about the restrictions, saying that passengers on international flights coming to the United States will apparently have to remain in their seats for the last hour of a flight without any personal items on their laps. It was not clear how often the rule would affect domestic flights.

Ooh, ooh, I can answer this one! The answer is “A lot!” After all, the people making the rules here don’t actually have to suffer under them, so there’s no negative feedback loop to keep them from saddling us with onerous travel restrictions designed to hide the fact that the system did not, in fact, work.  So expect the geniuses currently running the government to make sure that that the rules are blindly applied across the board; it beats thinking, right?

For more, see The Agitator, via RS McCain; and Hot Air.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

I… I… I…

…words fail me.  Via Hot Air Headlines:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday that the thwarting of the attempt to blow up an Amsterdam-Detroit airline flight Christmas Day demonstrated that “the system worked.”

Moe Lane

PS: No, not even profanity.  It’s that bad.

Crossposted to RedState.