I noted a new attitude of humility by President Obama in his speech today about security. And it was an overnight thing. He spoke about the same thing 24 hours earlier but it was a different Obama.
Gone was the cock-sure Obama beloved of his sheeple.
No doubt it was a calculated change; an understanding that all previous efforts to get beyond this issue with the typical spin, had failed; an understanding that the right was using this one against him.
For example, Obama had banished the phrase, “global war on terror,” used by Bush. The new term, as of March 2009 was to be, “Overseas Contingency Operation.”
But today he broke his own rule and said: “We are at war. We are at war against al Qaeda, a far-reaching network of violence and hatred that attacked us on 9/11, that killed nearly 3,000 innocent people, and that is plotting to strike us again. And we will do whatever it takes to defeat them.”
That took a large dose of humility for Obama to put aside his own agenda and agree with the American people for a change.
And that same humility infected his staff. Just last Sunday John Brennan was telling Fox News that there wasn’t sufficient intelligence to tell us the panty bomber was going to board an airplane. Today Brennan would tell us that we failed to connect the dots and then explain to the American people the corrective actions required.
That’s nice to hear, until you realize that “connecting the dots” make up the exact mission statement of his department since the beginning. It is a bit embarrassing to fail at your core mission, don’t you think?
Additionally, Obama intimated that the terrorist problem is a Muslim problem, which was new ground for the president. Heretofore he went out of his way to avoid the connection. It is no secret that Obama reaches out to Muslims, and that outreach effort has prevented him from calling a spade a spade.
But not today. Today he talked about Muslims and hinted that the terrorists were an extremist subset of his pet project in the world.
There are flaws in his plan to be sure. We may spend billions on the new x-rated x-ray machines here in the United States, but doing so won’t do squat for the screening capabilities in the third world countries that are our real danger.
And after telling us we would be subjected to more rigorous and intrusive screenings, Obama had the nerve to say, “Here at home, we will strengthen our defenses, but we will not succumb to a siege mentality that sacrifices the open society and liberties and values that we cherish as Americans.” I’m not sure what hunkering down means to Obama, but it seems to me that a virtual strip search is succumbing to the enemy.
He’s learning. It took several foolish trial-and-error efforts on this one, but at last he’s swallowed his pride and presented a plan. Finally, some leadership.
