A Silly Argument: Obama Was 'Distracted,' So Flight 253 Almost Blew Up

Flight 253 was a big deal. One lone underwear-bomber nearly killed hundreds and devastated a critical industry. Citizens and their elected representatives are right to demand answers and accountability from the government officials responsible for national security and aviation safety. But it's silly to blame President Obama for the screw-ups that led to this almost-disaster.

Yet that's what happening in some quarters. At the White House press briefing on Monday, as press secretary Robert Gibbs was noting that Obama receives daily intelligence briefings on terrorist threats, veteran reporter Helen Thomas interrupted and exclaimed, "Nobody is saying that. They're saying you blew it." Moments later, CBS News correspondent Chip Reid picked up on this: "As Helen said, a lot of people believe the president and his administration simply blew it. Would you agree with that?"

After Gibbs remarked that Obama has already declared there was "a systemic intelligence failure," Reid queried, "Does the president take any personal blame for that? Does he believe that he did not pay enough attention to these issues in his first year in office?" Others have made this point. Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a Republican who co-chaired the 9/11 Commission, claimed that Obama's administration had been "distracted" by health care reform, the economy, climate change and other issues and was not "focused as it should be on terrorism." Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, chimed in to declare that Obama was too "distracted by other things" to pay sufficient attention to national security. Conservative bloggers have adopted this mantra.

There are two parts to this absurd argument. One is that Obama, during his first year in office, neglected the national security responsibilities of his job; the other is that Obama somehow is responsible for the government bumbling that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to get as close as he did.

Anyone who reads a newspaper -- or scans a news Web site -- knows that Obama has devoted much time and energy to developing a strategy for the Afghanistan war that aims to counter the threat posed by Islamic extremists. (Whether or not you agree with his decision, you can't deny he hasn't taken this policy seriously -- unless you live in a bizarro anti-Obama universe.) And for good or bad, Obama also has stepped up the use of missiles-firing Predator drones to kill suspected terrorists (and perhaps civilians) in Pakistan. According to the Long War Journal, Predator attacks in Pakistan in 2008 caused 286 al-Qaeda and Taliban casualties; this past year, through September, the number was 404. Targets of these attacks include top Taliban and al-Qaeda figures. Clearly, the Obama administration has intensified this counterterrorism activity.

As for the second part of the blame-Obama case, it's ridiculous to hold him at fault for the failures of intelligence employees who did not effectively handle the pre-Flight 253 intelligence indicating that Abdulmutallab was a potential threat. I know that some conservatives will scream, "Hey, liberals bashed Bush for not doing anything to prevent 9/11 and now these hypocrites are going easy on Obama!" But the 9/11 screw-up is not an accurate comparison to the Flight 253 blunder. Regarding Bush and 9/11, his administration, in its first eight months, had not moved quickly to address the growing threat from al-Qaeda. It had done nothing in response to al-Qaeda's attack on the USS Cole in October 2000. (Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz maintained that al-Qaeda was less a threat than Iraqi-sponsored terrorism.) And Bush famously -- or infamously -- took no significant actions in response to a top-secret Aug. 6, 2001, briefing headlined, "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S." While Bush could not be blamed for all the mistakes that allowed the 9/11 evildoers to slip past U.S. intelligence professionals charged with tracking terrorists, he can be held accountable for missing the big picture big-time.

Obama, on the other hand, has inherited an intelligence and security apparatus that is fully fixated on al-Qaeda. Moreover, ever since failed-shoe-bomber Richard Reid's botched attack in December 2001, the agencies responsible for national security and aviation safety have been well aware that these sortsof attacks are possible. As president, Obama should not have to back-stop the on-the-ground officials responsible for thwarting the sort of terrorist attacks that have already been attempted. When these folks mess up, it is Obama's job to find out what happened, to root out incompetence, and to ensure that such mistakes will never, ever happen again.

Obama does seem to be doing all that. On Monday afternoon, he described some of the preliminary findings of the reviews he ordered:


There's no keeping politics out of, well, everything. But the country's national security is best served when the debate over counterterrorism policies and practices is conducted in a reasonable manner and driven by facts and ideas, not the urge to score cheap points. There ought to be arguments over how best to address terrorism threats, how to weigh security concerns against civil liberties. But exploiting all this for political gain -- that's a true distraction that can undermine the nation's security.

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