This week John Brennan, President Obama's top counter terrorism adviser, was asked if he believes Michael Leiter, director of the National Counter terrorism Center, should be asked to resign his position. Leiter as you may recall from news accounts, was on a skiing vacation at the time of the attack. Instead of returning to his post he chose to continue on vacation. Brennan stated that he had been in touch with Leiter and they discussed whether he should return or not. According to Brennan, Leiter told him his top aids were in place and on the job. Brennan then told him there was no need to return, enjoy your vacation. You deserve it you've worked hard for it.
I find it hard to believe that the director of the National Counter terrorism Center would call and ask advice on whether he should return to his job or not. What's more amazing is that Brennan would go on network news and admit to it. It probably went something like this. "Hello John, this is Michael,...yea the skiing's great! Listen John, about this attempted airplane bombing, is this serious? Am I going to have to scrap the rest of my vacation? Oh...Janet Napolitano has it under control...she says the system is working? Great! Well call if you need me, I'm off to the slopes. Later dude!"
So should he be released because he didn't return? Well that would be hard to justify since his boss, President Obama, was also on vacation and saw no urgent need to address the American public until three days after the incident and then only after Napolitano's comments referring to "no known connections" and "the system is working." set off a PR nightmare which led to calling a security summit at the White House so all parties could get their stories straight. It seems Robert Gibbs was running out of answers at the press meetings and the sharks were smelling blood.
You'll have to excuse my sarcasm but this White House summit on national security is one big cover my ass damage control exercise meant to bolster the image of Obama and his cabinet at a time when their ineptness on fighting terrorism and "connecting dots" could never be clearer to the American public. In his public address all the predictable things were said, "the buck stops here" and so forth. He did manage to finally say we are at war...with al Qaeda, still not willing to say war on terrorism. I guess all the foreign states that harbor al Qaeda and supporting terrorist networks don't count as enemies. What he did not say is that he would reverse some of his lame brained policies, such as closing Gitmo, and treating terrorists like common criminals, affording them all the rights and protections our system of law provides. Until he does that all the chest thumping speeches in the world won't convince the public or the world he isn't weak, very weak when it comes to national security and combating terrorism. Sure, he announced the increase in troops for Afghanistan but in the same sentence he announced we're pulling out almost as soon as we get there. Ever since he has taken office his priority has been pushing an unpopular social agenda over the war and keeping America safe. Now he's paying the price for that neglect and unfortunately so is the country.
One only has to look at the recent security breeches at White House functions to begin to get a picture of how this administration approaches security issues. Terrorists don't take vacations and constant vigilance and cooperation between security departments is a priority. President Obama has a long way to go to restore the confidence of the American people that he can keep America secure.
Edisto Joe
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