Barack Obama – Tough Guy

A friend close to the intelligence community argues that Obama has been much tougher on the intelligence agencies after the Christmas bombing attempt than President Bush was after 9/11.

A (right of center) friend close to the intelligence community makes this point. He talked too rapidly for me to transcribe his words exactly, but close enough for blogging work:

Look at the coldness with which Obama has dumped on the intelligence community for the Mutallab screw-up. Compare that to George Bush, who took the bullet for every slacker, hold-over, and opportunist after 9/11. Not a single person was fired after the worst intelligence disaster in American history, not one!  Are you telling me that nobody was to blame? Yet Bush never breathed a word of blame. And were they grateful? Of course not.

Obama’s not making any excuses for anybody. Yes obviously he’s covering himself. Why shouldn’t he? He’s making it clear to the agencies that he expects heads to roll. And they will, as they didn’t after 9/11.

Bush was warm and soft. Obama is cold and hard. Whatever you criticize him for, remember that.

And Marc Ambinder nominates the likely first candidate to be sacked for the underwear bombing: Michael Leiter, head of the National Counterterrorism Center.

I have no idea whether Leiter's deserving of censure. But all these years later, I still wish that somebody other than Bill Maher had lost his job for 9/11.