Brennan. Another incompetent who needs to resign. USA Today takes to task.

It is political.  The latest Obama admin dimwit to go on a Sunday show, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security, John Brennan, needs to be fired.

I previously posted about Brennan's appearance this weekend.

USA Today weighs in:

"Ever since the botched Christmas Day plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, the Obama administration's national security officials have struggled to assure the public that they know exactly what they're doing.


"So far, they're achieving the opposite."

This, they write in an op-ed headlined, "Our View: National Security Team Fails to Inspire Confidence" in which the administration (including Mr. Brennan) is taken to task for their handling of the underwear bomber.  It's pretty damning coming from the notoriously right-wing, nation's newspaper [that's called sarcasm]. 

In his "Opposing View" Brennan maintains, "Immediately after the failed Christmas Day attack, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was thoroughly [his words] interrogated and provided important information."  How thoroughly interrogated was he, since we learned last week that he was now providing more "useful" information?

Brennan doesn't want people "misrepresenting the facts to score political points" but, what facts are getting misrepresented? An extremely important fact is that the entire leadership team, Dennis Blair (National Intel Director), Leon Panetta (CIA Director), Janet Napolitano (DHS Sec'y), Bob Mueller (FBI Director), and the elected President, knew nothing of the decision to Mirandize the exploding crotch man until after the fact.  It's not political grandstanding, nor is it scoring political points, to recognize that the public has a right to know how the hell this all happened without their knowledge.   Mueller blames his own field agents.  Well, if this was the right decision, let's get these guys names.  The Left will lionize them (they can be their very own Ramos and Campean).  However, everyone else just sits around and has a "Duh! moment," as written by USA Today.

Brennan reminds us that in the Obama administration, "There is little difference between military and civilian custody, other than an interrogator with a uniform. The suspect gets access to a lawyer, and interrogation rules are nearly identical."  Maybe Mr.Brennan should have his own "Duh! moment" here, and realize that with this administration's throwing enhanced interrogation techniques to the wind, that statement is more damning and evidence of this administration's own naivete' than it is comforting. Mr. Brennan is tone deaf to the political lesson of Massachusetts, but, that's par for the course in this group of political neophytes, and I don't blame him for being clueless to the political winds.

Brennan continues, "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda."  I'm not sure where he was during the Bush years, back when politically motivated criticism was "patriotic dissent," but USA Today reminds that on his weekend appearance, he "chafed at the criticism the intelligence community is getting. He said it was demoralizing and urged cheerleading instead."  They pointed out that "cheerleading doesn't get problems fixed, and it's undeniable that there are plenty to address."

Our political leaders, elected and appointed, have one most important Constitutional requirement, and that is the protection of the American people from enemies foreign and domestic.  In this case, the administration has failed miserably, saved only by the quick thinking of a (Dutch) passenger.  We could only say this is not a political issue if we all agreed on the politics of Mirandizing unlawful combatants and trying them in civilian courts.  We don't.  Therefore, it's political, and it requires a political change - either in heart of those currently in power, or in their work location.