... And Republicans Would Have Done What?

On Christmas Day, a terror attack on a Detroit-bound airplane was, thankfully, narrowly averted. In the aftermath, of course, Republicans and conservative pundits have lined up to blast the President for being lax on security.

As much as I believe that there's plenty of mindless politicking to go around on both sides of the aisle, why is it that Republicans always seem to come out smelling the worst on this stuff? Things like this make me wonder whether these people are, basically, driven entirely by malice. Or alternatively, if they really believe the nonsense they are spouting, then how so many people could be so incredibly stupid.

U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R) said of the alleged terrorist attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight in Detroit. … "People have got to start connecting the dots here and maybe this is the thing that will connect the dots for the Obama administration," Hoekstra said.

The kicker for Hoekstra: "Hoekstra hadn't yet been briefed on the incident." Classy... throwing blame around before you know the first thing. Then, Rep. Peter King (R), ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, tells Fox News:

"His name was in a database indicating significant terrorist connections," King said, adding, "I’m not trying to be a Monday morning quarterback here…but let's see what was missed."

Of course. Something must have been missed, and it must be someone else's fault. Someone who's a democrat, black, and soft on terrorism.

The facts are really quite simple. A man tried to detonate a bomb on a flight from Nigeria to Detroit, stopping in Amsterdam. The bomb materials were liquid and powder.

Here is what I see.

1. The man did not board a plane in the United States. Whatever security measures we could have had in place, would not have mattered.

2. Almost certainly, he could have gotten through U.S. security anyway. In tests in 2006, bomb parts were successfully smuggled past airport security as much as 80% of the time. Awesome.

4. Mr. King said the suspect's name did not appear on any of the terrorist watch lists maintained by U.S. authorities, but that the Nigerian national did turn up "hot" in other terrorism-related databases maintained by intelligence officials. Sounds like an organized system, who put this together then?

So couple questions for ya.

1. What, exactly, would have been different, less than a year after Obama took office, had a Republican been president? What would have been done that could have prevented this incident?

2. The security measures that are in place today, are, in fact, things that George W. Bush put in place. I am unaware that Obama has actually removed any precautions.

3. Speaking of W., what exactly did he do to protect us other than making us carry our shampoo through the metal detector instead of packing it?

Let's see.... in 2006, the Washington Post found that there were "only 33 FBI agents have even a limited proficiency in Arabic, and none of them work in the sections of the bureau that coordinate investigations of international terrorism." 33. Out of 12,000.

Wow. That's pretty awesome, W. In five years' time it didn't dawn on you that, actually, getting some Arabic speaking operatives on the job might be a lot more effective than stupid feel-good patdowns at the airport? Someone intent on killing themselves is probably not going to be put off by sticking a tube of nitro up their butt.

Oh and how'd that PR campaign in Iraq work out for you? Probably not that well, since in 2007, there were only 10 have a working knowledge of Arabic. Out of 1,000 employees. "The report found that more than one-third of public policy diplomacy positions at Arabic language posts were filled by people who did not speak the language at the designated level."

Oh, but I forgot, Republicans tend to be of the opinion that everyone else should learn our language.

I mean, seriously. I am sure it's hard to find tons of qualified job applicants who speak arabic. But don't you think that in 6 years' time you could have taught more than 10 people to speak it?

If I was in charge of any security-related branch of the government after 9/11, every single one of my employees doing any kind of intelligence or middle-east policy work would be having some mandatory job training. At the Language Exchange. I'm sorry, but as of 9/11/01, it's your f?!cking job to be able to understand what the people who are trying to kill you are saying. Rosetta Stone or the unemployment line, buddy.

So basically, Bush did a whole lot of nothing in 8 years to protect us. Oh, he did manage to work around several constitutional rights to privacy in that time, accomplishing nothing except the disillusionment of hundreds of millions of American citizens. But hey - if you can't understand Arabic, might as well just listen to conversations you CAN understand, even if they are completely irrelevant.

At the end of the day, what you have is Republicans blaming Obama for a system that failed to stop this guy. A system that was set up by a Republican president. A guy who had 7 years to build a security mechanism following 9/11, which is arguably as ineffective as it was on that day. So if it's Obama's fault that we're weak on security, less than a year into his term, then, umm, how do you feel about the 7 years your pal Bush spent getting things to where they aren't today?

Oh, who am I kidding. Republicans are like that Sanford character from the "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace." You know, in the only good moment of the whole movie where he says "Mind tricks don'a work on me. Only money." What's the point of trying to argue rationally with someone who's not interested in what's rational.