Wednesday, December 30, 2009

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 flagsthat 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.
---o0o---

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

pablo get back on your meds. Obama in one year has destroyed this country faster than carter. You look like a kool aid drinking, knee pad wearing, friend of dorothy for writing such tripe.

Anonymous said...

OH NOES, SOMEONE SAID SOMETHING GOOD ABOUT OBAMA. HE MUST BE DRINKING THE KOOL AID, MIRITE?

ONE SEC. BRB. I NEED TO GO FELLATE REAGANS MAGGOT RIDDEN COCK.

OKAY. BACK.

I MEAN, HOW CAN YOU SAY ANYTHING GOOD ABOUT THAT GOOD-FOR-NOTHIN' BASTARD WHO PALLS AROUND WITH TERR--

ONE SEC. BRB. I NEED TO GO BURY MY TONGUE IN PALINS CANYON-ESQUE CUNT.

OKAY. BACK.

STOP DRINKING THE KOOL AID OF THE ONE, YOU DEMONCRAT. STOP WORSHIPPING YOUR FALSE MESSIAH.

Anonymous said...

Ok... so you're a retard.

Good to know.

Anonymous said...

Jeez, brother. The Bush-man's been gone for a year. Let it go, man.

Winter said...

some day some time, Dem's will start to accept




responsability


/////naw, easier to just blame bush

NotSoup said...

Yeah, Democrats should accept responsibility.

No republican is claiming Bush inherited 911
http://rawstory.com/2009/12/gop-strategist-matalin-bush-inherited-911-attacks-clinton/

No Republican would claim Bush inherited the recession that happened during his tenure
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWYzNWE3ZGZjN2IxMmRiZmZkMDkyZDMxNmQ4ZGFhZTk=

And certainly no one would claim the recession was Obama's before he even took office
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_110608/content/01125107.guest.html

Why can't those libs take responsibility for an organization (TSA) that Bush moved under the purview of an organization that he created (Homeland Security) and put a Czar in charge of. Why can't Obama accept fault for the organization that's he's been prevented from assigning a new head of for over 4 months?

They need to take responsibility like Republicans do.
/s

Anonymous said...

Notsoup your a fucking retard

There will always be a nutjob for either party claiming responsibility lies in the farthest relms of imagination.

The diffence here is the the current President constantly attributes ANY problem we have to that of Bush. Not an advisor, not a lesser important member of the party- THE LEADER OF THE PARTY.

Your trying to equate a leaders lack of accountability with that of followers of a seperate ideal.

Go hug a fucking tree and don't worry if you fall off a branch and get hurt we will all share your medical expenses

Anonymous said...

why did it randomly delete part of my post and merge sentences

Anonymous said...

Standard liberal methods, always blame someone else for your problems. While Bush may have had problems with aspects of his presidency, he made damn sure that he took the fight to the terrorists. No amount of screening at the airport can stop these attacks, if they want to get something on a plane, they will. Bush never apologized for trying to keep us safe, he called terrorism "terrorism" not "man made disasters", and by keeping the enemy fighting us over seas and showing strength he ensured that they would be on the defensive, not us. Now that BHO has shown weakness he has opened the door for these attacks, and they will now be more frequent. You libs don't seem to understand reality, you only look at things on the surface level. To figure out how to solve problems or what drives certain things, you need to ask "Why?" down 5 levels, but you just ask it to one or two and call it a day. This WAR that BHO refuses to admit exists is not one that talking or speeches is going to win, it can only be won by killing those who want to kill us, and by making it safe for people in the muslim world to stand up to terrorists themselves. It is going to take a successful attack to wake up the american people, sad but true. You may be sitting at your computer, not at war with anyone, but someone in crappy little shack in SWA (south west asia) is at war with you, but you don't look at it like that, and until you do, this will continue to happen, god forbid.

Anonymous said...

There will always be a nutjob for either party claiming responsibility lies in the farthest relms of imagination.

The diffence here is the the current President constantly attributes ANY problem we have to that of Bush. Not an advisor, not a lesser important member of the party- THE LEADER OF THE PARTY.

Your trying to equate a leaders lack of accountability from one ideolgy with that of less important followers of a seperate ideolgy.

Go hug a fucking tree and don't worry if you fall off a branch and get hurt we will all share your medical expenses

Andrew in Austin said...

Yeah, you Republicans are right. Obama started two wars, he was also the first to give out bailout funds, and he also passed the Patriot Act. Gitmo. Torturing prisoners of war.

Bush was a terrible president. A stupid man raised by a rich, powerful father, who grew up with daddy issues. The Republican sycophants put him in power and ran the country into the ground with ridiculous religious and "compassionate conservative" ideology.

Were you better off at the end of Bush's presidency or the beginning?

And what is the body count for the war in Iraq, a war begun on the basis of weapons of mass destruction, something we never found?

What is boils down to is that Republicans are pissed off that a black man is president, but none of you have the balls to say it. Cowards.

IndieThinker said...

Bush and Cheney broke both US consitutional and international laws. Just so you know, R-tards. Quit watching Fox News, and Christianity is as absurd as Islam, Judaism, Satanism, Scientology, and any other ideology that absconds personal responsibility. Poor Republicans get raped by the insurance companies and GOP just as much as everyone else, but then are called "weak moderates" because "obviously they are lazy Obama sympathizers". It's ludicrous, I feel so bad for the Republicans because they have these idiots showing their asses which have become the face of the party.

Keekee Brummet said...

I think the commenters are missing the point. I'm not so sure The President is laying blame so much as just trying to fix things.

Anonymous said...

wow, what a bunch of idiotic comments. Bush fucked up so many things in this country it's a wonder if Obama will get anything done in his term of office, besides picking up after Baby Bush

Anonymous said...

Vitriol and name calling. Sure gets the points across.

When you call people names, people stop listening, get defensive and your efforts to advance ideas become masturbatory. Not that they weren't in the first place.

sigh.

Keekee Brummet said...

I agree with the last poster...when you start calling people names, the arguments are null. It's partly my fault because I removed the necessity to login and allow anonymous comments--and anonymous comments seem to be almost a license to people to misbehave. But, hey, I'm just trying to be democratic here. Literally and figuratively!

Anonymous said...

There comes a point when "BHO" has to accept that he is the president and can't blame everything on his predecessor. It has been a year after all. . . BTW why is a picture of BHO shining Palin's shoes an afront but making Bush look like a monkey ok? Jus' wonderin'

Mona Goldwater said...

What picture are you talking about?

Anonymous said...

LGT
http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20091230/UPDATES01/91230011/1002/NEWS01/Colorado+transportation+worker+investigated+for+work+email+depicting+Obama+shining+Palin+s+shoes