republicans see political opportunity in Obama response to failed airplane bomb

[spanone]

dear President Obama, next time you want to promote bipartisanship....remember these fucking people are the enemy.

......imagine if 911 had happened on Obama's watch?

------------------------

Republicans are jumping on President Obama's response to the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner as the latest evidence that Democrats do not aggressively fight terrorism to protect the country, returning to a campaign theme that the GOP has employed successfully over the past decade.

Since before Obama was sworn into office, Republicans have been building a case that he is weak on national security, and in the wake of the intelligence and security failures that led to last week's incident, they think that narrative might stick. Congressional Republicans and GOP pollsters said they believe the administration's response to the failed attack on a Detroit-bound plane -- along with Obama's decisions on the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the intelligence lapses connected to November's massacre at Fort Hood, Tex. -- damage the Democratic brand.

After dispatching surrogates to speak on his behalf over the weekend, Obama tried to quell critics who thought he had been quiet for too long by addressing the nation Tuesday for the second time in two days. But Republicans said his admission of "systemic failures" by U.S. intelligence agencies -- which did not share fully or act upon information about the Nigerian suspect on the Northwest Airlines flight -- underscored what they have been arguing for days. The result of the GOP offensive could be to create doubt, even fear, among the American public that Obama cannot protect them.

Republicans spent much of the 2008 campaign criticizing Obama for his lack of national security experience and have not relented since he took office almost a year ago. Eleven months out from the 2010 midterm elections, however, pollsters said it is difficult, if not impossible, to predict whether the issue will drive voters.

The nation's economy and health-care reform are sure to be dominant themes. But if the public remains concerned about the safety of air travel and about international terrorism, the Republican attacks on Obama could be "very influential," said Andrew Kohut, a veteran pollster and president of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/29/AR2009122903379_pf.html

[rocktivity]

1. And if he HAD jumped on it quickly

They would accuse him of using it to make political hay for himself.

Like the boy who cried wolf too often, The Rethugs have blown any chance to criticize him legimately.

:boring:
rocktivity

[spanone]

2. yes, but they will....and the media will present the forum

[malaise]

3. And this happened just in time to kick off

the 2010 election campaign.
The only national security bumper sticker needed for the 2010 elections is
9/11 happened when Bush and Cheney were in charge.

Remember all that happened on Christmas day was a major scare. The plane did not blow up and no one was hurt.

[customerserviceguy]

9. Not exactly true

A few of the passengers suffered minor burns trying to put out the fire in Johnny Jihad's pants. And even though the plane didn't go down, that was nothing more than a stroke of luck. I saw some of this chemical being detonated on CNN yesterday, between ignition and explosion was only about five or six seconds.

Minimizing this is not going to work. Anybody who's flown on an airliner can identify with the passengers on that flight. And keeping law-abiding Americans safe from other law-abiding Americans by restricting us to our seats for the last hour of the flight is not going to work, either.

We expect our government to protect us from foreign threats, first and foremost. I knew when the news came out that Johnny Jihad was from Africa, this would be an especially touchy issue for President Obama. All the fear that the teabaggers have been manufacturing about him being some sort of Muslim terrorist from Kenya is the soil in which a new seed just got planted.

[FarLeftFist]

4. DICK CHENEY PLEASE STFU

Edit: BushCo waited 6 days to publicly acknowledge Richard Reid (shoe-bomber) which occured AFTER 9/11.

[Solly Mack]

5. My Pet Goat, 7 minutes...silence...just sitting there

and then running scared all over the country in air-force one

Cheney, running scared to a hidey-hole.

Duct-tape and plastic

rounding up young men who happen to be Muslim

Attacks on brown people because the fear-mongering against Muslims riled up the idiots.

24/7 Fear! Fear! Fear!



Do they really, really want to go there?

Do they really want to talk about the results of over-reacting?

[spanone]

6. they will not only go there, the media will help rewrite history to help them

[Solly Mack]

8. and idiots will buy into it

and America has her share of idiots

[Captain Hilts]

7. Correction: R's see political opportunity where there isn't one. nt

[spanone]

10. deaths or near deaths of american citizens spells 'opportunity' to the republican party

they are sick fucks