The Sunshine Empire

The rank absurdity of our political climate at the end of 2009 is being laid bare by this current controversy over the attempted bombing of a Northwest airlines flight on Christmas night. The first centers around the nonsensical logic of which president owns which terrorist attack. The second revolves around the public statements made by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. Her characterization of what happened after the man was subdued on the flight having been misunderstood, and how the “liberal” media took it as some kind of flip flop when she clarified the next day has me thinking we’ve all lost our minds. All this while Senator Jim DeMint blocks the TSA head from being nominated, yet Republicans still cravenly attempt to pin the blame on President Obama just because he happens to be from a state that is actually worth going home to for Christmas.

The Republican party has been desperate for the United States to be the victim of another terrorist attack since before the 2006 midterm elections. The constant refrain is that if something like that would occur then people would go back to the scared shitless status that made for huge Republican electoral gains in the early part of the decade after 9/11. Republicans also have an interesting reflexive scale that ascertains which President is at fault for which terrorist attacks. By their logic, the first bombing of the World Trade Center that happened just months after George H.W. Bush left office were actually the fault of then President Bill Clinton. Yet the 9/11 attacks that occurred just months after Clinton left office were also, surprise, the fault of President Clinton. Yet we’re treated to another reflexive flip flop now that this terrorist attack months into the Obama administration is not the fault of the system set up by George W. Bush’s administration, but the fault of President Obama. Nothing that happens good during Democratic administrations is actually the work of Democrats, and everything bad that happens is actually their fault by Republican standards.

The media buy into this paradigm and also rarely place any blame for the 9/11 attacks on anything that Bush did or did not do in the run up to the tragedy in 2001. Since taking office President Obama has stepped up drone attacks on al-Qeada in Pakistan, almost tripled the amount of troops fighting in Afghanistan, and had been rumored to be sharing intelligence with the Yemeni government to fight AQ-AP there. Yet after this we find Republicans blaming Obama for the FAILED attack. Janet Napolitano goes out to praise those who helped subdue the terrorist and the system that had all planes in the air also alerted to ensure that others were not surprised by any others that may attempt such an attack. al-Qeada is known for simultaneous attacks and this warning was crucial. But by saying “the system worked” she seemed to be saying that it worked by letting almost undetectable explosives on the plane in a foreign country. When she clarified what she meant, which was not that different from what she said, what did we get from the “liberal” media? We’re told that she changed her story and flip-flopped and looked weak. Are you serious? You people are absurd. If only the Transportation Safety Administration had someone in charge who could spearhead this investigation.

Yet there is no head for the TSA at the moment due to a hold on the nomination placed in the Senate by Jim DeMint. Keeping a vital national security position open and scoring political points was more important that the security of the American people. In years past Republicans would take these kinds of procedural votes in terms of voting against a nominee or against a specific defense appropriations amendment as “voting against the troops.” Yet Republicans doing just that in the past weeks is explained away with a sudden love of nuance. I’m guessing that nuance will be a thing of the past once they are in power again one day.

When a rich Republican was in the White House for 8 years, his constant and lengthy trips to his multi-million dollar palatial estate hardly ever raised the ire of Republicans that constantly advise us not to engage in class warfare. Yet none of that seems to affect most of them as they rail against a Democratic president spending his Christmas vacation in the state he was born in. Republicans talk of Obama vacationing in some kind of ivory tower, insensitive to the plight of average Americans while he rents a house in his home state. Yet George W. Bush spending a month at his estate in 2001 as the 9/11 hijackers were putting their plan in place is just the average actions of a good ole boy from Texas. The amount of cognitive dissonance around such an attitude devoid of reality is staggering.

Why should the judgment of a group so loose in the winds of political exploitation be trusted? Janet Napolitano did not flip-flop, Jim DeMint is playing politics with America’s safety, and President Obama should be excused that his birth state is somewhere that’s not a hell-hole during the winter. Get over it.