Obama Fail on Terrorism

It wouldn't be Christmas in the post-9-11 era without a terrorist attempt on an airliner. As if the sluggish economy and two wars overseas weren't enough of a downer, the very real threat of terrorism aimed at U.S. citizens in our skies and on our land still looms large. The worst decade ever, as Time magazine says, may be over, but what the hell do we have to look forward to in 2010? That, my friends, is for a later blog post. Today, however, we have to talk about President Obama's loose grip on national security. In short: when a passenger plane is nearly blown out of the sky, don't you think the president should have a word or two with the nation?

Well, our president is on a much-deserved vacation in Hawaii. I say that seriously, the man has a right to some sun and golf and quality time with his family. But the "blackberry" president, he who is supposedly always at the ready, he who can answer that 3am call, has a responsibility to address any significant attempt on our nation's safety and tell the American people what next steps are in place to keep us safe. It is not the job of a bumbling administration official, one Janet Napolitano, to get on CNN to say the system "works" when the system just allowed an avowed terrorist - one whose family reported him to the FBI just a few weeks ago - to get on a plane with enough TSA-approved equipment to blow up a plane.

Then again, this is the same president who told the nation to not jump to conclusions after the killing spree at Fort Hood last month. A man who has since been revealed to have been in contact with religious extremists in Yemen shoots up an army base and it's preposterous to assume any connection with Islamic jihad. Uh, right.

This is where liberals rightly get it on the chin from conservatives. In the liberal mindset, national security is put in dismissive quotation marks to represent the hysterics of the barely literate. And even when the doom and gloom scenarios of the illiterate come true, liberals are quick to shrug these off and say they're the product of, well, insert any social ill here that can be blamed on capitalism and that, my friends, results in terrorism.

As much as I hate to reference Dick Cheney, that man did say that Obama's approach to national security puts our safety in danger. Now, Obama is no more responsible for this attempted attack than George W. Bush was responsible for 9-11. The idea, however, that Obama is soft on terror and is more inclined to court the Muslim world rather than chastise them for the unrelenting violence of their faith, lingers. For reputation's sake, the president should have by now addressed the nation and put on a brave face for an ongoing conflict.

Obama fail, as they say in Twitter speak, when it comes to our safety.