A salute to President Barack Obama, George W. Bush's magnificent clean-up man, or, the man with the broom following the elephant

by Pablo Fanque

All This Is That National Affairs Editor

As you probably know, I frequently criticize Barack Obama. I voted for the man and I like the man, but have been disappointed by his compromising and centrist stance on the issues of the day. His cool, cerebral approach is often just a little too cool. And there have been odd moments of distraction--two that come to mind are the beer party he held for his old Professor and the cop who busted him, and flying thousands of miles to throw a Hail-Mary for a Chicago Olympics bid. But that is, really, pretty small stuff.

Barack Obama has inherited and masterfully begun to tackle hundreds of problems that President George W. Bush either left behind, or actually created. This hit home this week with the Christmas Day bombing attempt on a passenger jet. And, once again, BHO is left to clean up his predecessor's mess. One expert says that the billions of dollars we have spent on airport security have been virtually worthless. Security expert Bruce Schneier wrote this week:

"For years I've been saying 'Only two things have made flying safer [since 9/11]: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers.'"

President Barack Obama said U.S. intelligence agencies missed “red flags” that would have put the Nigerian bomber on a no-fly list before Christmas Day, when he is accused of trying to blow up an airliner. He called this lapse a "systemic failure."

Our government failed to heed warnings that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab could pose a terrorist threat even after his father warned U.S. authorities about his concerns, the president said yesterday. President Obama said: “The warning signs would have triggered red flags, and the suspect would have never been allowed to board that plane for America.” Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, is charged with smuggling explosives onto a Northwest Airlines jet and trying to blow up the plane as it prepared to land in Detroit. The TSA's absurd response? Not let passengers leave their seats the last hour of a flight.

Obama said he expects results tomorrow from investigations he ordered into the nearly tragic failure of aviation security and terrorist intelligence gathering.

On top of everything else he assumed, The President now has to deal with cleaning up the entire national airline security system. If Bruce Schneier is correct, and it looks like he is, the President will need to rebuild that laughable system from the ground up. Between a two-front war, a teetering economy, and the other bits and pieces he must pick up, it's an absolute miracle Barack Obama was able to focus on health care reform. I'm glad to see he was able to get anything accomplished on that front. For now, he has to return to the job that will consume his next seven years in office: cleaning up the messes left behind by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

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