Northwest Terror Attempt Restores Security to Center of American Politics

At Big Government, Dana Loesch reports on "The Most Underreported Stories of 2009." It's a phenomenal essay, and breathtaking in peeling back the journalistic malpractice in the country today. But while Dana discusses Fort Hood and the home-grown Islamist threat, it's clear that the administration's gotten a free ride on its disastrous foreign policy altogether. And now that Americans have come literally within threads of a catastrophic bombing, it will simply do no good to let the administration skate free on national security any longer.

A suicide bombing reportedly killed eight Americans on a CIA base in Afghanistan, making it the worst single loss of life for the CIA since 1983.. As David Martin reports, the Taliban is claiming responsibility.

**********

Perhaps this piece at the Wall Street Journal might help us restore some perspective. See, "GOP Seizes on Security as Issue":

Political furor over the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 has thrust national security back to the center of American politics, with Republicans and the White House scrambling to blame each other for intelligence lapses and present themselves to voters as tougher on terrorism.

Strategists in both parties believe that terrorism and, more broadly, foreign policy could emerge in the November midterm elections and in President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign as key issues for voters who have been focused primarily on the economy.

GOP opinion leaders such as former Vice President Dick Cheney have seized on the attack to question President Barack Obama's grasp of foreign affairs. Republican Party officials have sent fund-raising appeals that take aim at Mr. Obama's response to the episode.

Republican strategists said in interviews that they saw an opportunity to regain the traditional advantages on security issues that failed them in the past two national campaigns, as the economic downturn and public opposition to President George W. Bush's policies in Iraq took primacy in voters' minds.

The White House and its allies, meanwhile, have responded by mounting a campaign to assert Mr. Obama's bona fides as a strong commander in chief while blaming Bush policies in Iraq for emboldening al Qaeda to plan attacks such as the one Christmas Day in the skies over Detroit.

Their efforts include using a White House Web site posting personally rebuking Mr. Cheney for "seven years of bellicose rhetoric" and arguing that al Qaeda during Mr. Bush's tenure "regenerated" to establish "new safe havens" in Yemen and Somalia. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the man accused in the botched effort to down Northwest Flight 253, allegedly trained in Yemen.

Good luck with that. Republicans can just point to Democratic hypocrisy on any of the security threats we've faced since at least the Iraq war, and more recently leftist defeatism on Afghanistan.

Dana Loesch Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds.

Video Hat Tip: AubreyJ.org.

RELATED: "C.I.A. Takes On Bigger and Riskier Role on Front Lines," via Memeorandum.