This reporter returned to Tampa Monday evening from San Francisco, where I can tell you that despite the concerns over the failed terrorist attack on a Northwest Airlines flight in Detroit on Christmas, heightened scrutiny of airline passengers traveling in our airports seemed to be reserved for those traveling internationally, and not domestically.
5 days after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian man accused of trying to ignite explosives on the flight from Amsterdam was unsuccessful in his attempt, the complaints about airport security, and Democrats (in this case our President, Barack Obama) being weak on the war on terror, have like clockwork, reappeared.
Obama has been criticized for waiting until Monday to speak out about the attack. His 2nd speech in as many days yesterday was much tougher in criticizing an apparent breakdown in intelligence circles, and earned him a break from most of his critics (but not all- last night on CNN, Ben Stein said Obama lacked "seriousness" in his address because he was wearing a polo shirt).
Obviously, the administration dug a hole for themselves on the PR front when both Homeland Defense Secretary Janet Napolitano and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went on the Sunday talk shows and stunningly said, "the system worked," which perhaps more than any other time in the President's first year in office, reminded people about the sometimes incompetency that George W. Bush could invoke, some as his similarly tone deaf praise of then FEMA head Mike Brown during the apex of the Katrina disaster ("Heckuva job, Brownie").
In fact, the NY Times Maureen Dowd, in bashing the President today, ending her caustic piece with a reference to that much mocked Bushism, writing, "Heck of a job, Barry."
But as Politico accurately reports today, Obama has reacted quicker to the events of last Friday quicker than George W. Bush did in the eerily similar incident involving "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid back in December of 2001- just months after the 9/11 attacks.
From Josh Gerstein's article in Politico today:
Bush did not address reporters about the Reid episode until December 28, after he had traveled from Camp David to his ranch in Texas.
Democrats do not appear to have criticized Bush over the delay. Many were wary of publicly clashing with the commander-in-chief, who was getting lofty approval ratings after what appeared to be a successful military campaign in Afghanistan. The media also seemed to have little interest in pressing Bush about the bombing, or the fact that the incident had revealed a previously unknown vulnerability in airplane security – that shoes could be used to hide chemicals or explosive devices.
An Agence France Presse story was one of the few to call attention to the silence from Bush and other top officials.
“Four days after Richard Colvin Reid, 28, tried to set fire to his explosives laden shoes on a trans-Atlantic flight, neither the White House nor other authorities had spoken officially on the alleged would-be suicide bombing,” AFP wrote on December 27, 2001.
During a wide-ranging 25-minute press availability with Bush the next day, reporters asked more than 15 questions, including queries about the president’s New Year’s Eve plans and a tree he’d planted. Bush was never asked about Reid, but mentioned the attempt in passing.
Last night on Larry King's show on CNN (guest hosted by Candy Crowley) Indiana Republican Representative Dan Burton, who hasn't made much prominent news since the time around 15 years ago when he shot at watermelons in his backyard to prove a theory about the death of former Clinton attorney Vince Foster, called for Janet Napolitano's head. The Canadian newspaper The National Post also says Napolitano must go.
Napolitano responds – not about herself – but what about her agency is doing in the wake of the Christmas event- in an op-ed in that most read newspaper in American airports – USA Today, where she admits that
While we took swift action immediately following last week's incident at airports around the country and throughout the world, our defenses should never have allowed this individual to board a plane bound for the United States. The administration is determined to find and fix the vulnerabilities in our systems that allowed this breach to happen.
Obama appeared to be sticking up for her during his announcement on Tuesday, so Burton's call is unlikely to be honored. However, the familiar complaints that we heard all too often after 9/11, and especially during the 9/11 Commission hearings in 2004 – that the intelligence agencies were involved in "turf battles" is truly a sorry spectacle to have to hear again.
The creation of Homeland Security came with it a general coordinator of all the intelligence agencies – The NID, or Director of National Intelligence. That man in the Obama administration is Dennis Blair. It seems that this man and agency needs to explain what his agency knew and when it knew it.
This article appears in Dec 30, 2009 – Jan 5, 2010.