{"id":450,"date":"2009-12-31T02:43:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T10:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=450"},"modified":"2009-12-31T02:43:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-31T10:43:00","slug":"on-politicizing-an-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2009\/12\/31\/on-politicizing-an-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"On Politicizing An Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Republican response to the underpants bomber attack has been nothing short of obscene.  Rachel Maddow put together a wonderful presentation on this.  Although I covered a mot of this Tuesday<\/a> and Yesterday<\/a>, she does such a wonderful job of connecting the dots that it\u2019s well worth the time to watch<\/p>\n

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In addition, Rachel also called out Democratic leaders for their failure to challenge these GOP lies.<\/p>\n

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

On a more positive note, she must have prepared the second piece, before the White House released this statement:<\/p>\n

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\"WhiteHouse\"<\/a> There has been a lot of discussion online and in the mainstream media about our response to various critics of the President, specifically former Vice President Cheney, who have been coming out of the woodwork since the incident on Christmas Day.  I think we all agree that there should be honest debate about these issues, but it is telling that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the Administration than condemning the attackers. Unfortunately too many are engaged in the typical Washington game of pointing fingers and making political hay, instead of working together to find solutions to make our country safer<\/strong>.<\/font><\/p>\n

First, it\u2019s important that the substantive context be clear: for seven years after 9\/11, while our national security was overwhelmingly focused on Iraq \u2013 a country that had no al Qaeda presence before our invasion \u2013 Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda’s leadership was able to set up camp in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they continued to plot attacks against the United States<\/strong>. Meanwhile, al Qaeda also regenerated in places like Yemen and Somalia, establishing new safe-havens that have grown over a period of years<\/strong>. It was President Obama who finally implemented a strategy of winding down the war in Iraq, and actually focusing our resources on the war against al Qaeda<\/strong> \u2013 more than doubling our troops in Afghanistan, and building partnerships to target al Qaeda\u2019s safe-havens in Yemen and Somalia.  And in less than one year, we have already seen many al Qaeda leaders taken out, our alliances strengthened, and the pressure on al Qaeda increased worldwide.<\/font><\/p>\n

To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President<\/strong>.<\/font><\/p>\n

Second, the former Vice President makes the clearly untrue claim that the President \u2013 who is this nation\u2019s Commander-in-Chief \u2013 needs to realize we are at War. I don\u2019t think anyone realizes this very hard reality more than President Obama. In his inaugural, the President said \u201cour nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.\u201d In a recent speech, Assistant to the President for Terrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan said \u201cInstead, as the president has made clear, we are at war with al-Qaida, which attacked us on 9\/11 and killed 3,000 people. We are at war with its violent extremist allies who seek to carry on al-Qaida\u2019s murderous agenda. These are the terrorists we will destroy; these are the extremists we will defeat.\u201d At West Point, the President told the nation why it was \u201cin our vital national interest\u201d to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to fight the war in Afghanistan, adding that as Commander in Chief, \u201cI see firsthand the terrible wages of war.\u201d And at Oslo, in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, the President said, \u201cWe are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

There are numerous other such public statements that explicitly state we are at war. The difference is this: President Obama doesn\u2019t need to beat his chest to prove it, and \u2013 unlike the last Administration \u2013 we are not at war with a tactic (\u201cterrorism\u201d), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies<\/strong>. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered.<\/font><\/p>\n

Dan Pfeiffer is White House Communications Director<\/em> [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <The White House<\/a>><\/p>\n

Normally, this is where I run off at the mouth, but I have nothing else to say, except that\u2019s it\u2019s about time the Obama administration started to fight back against these horrid Republicans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Republican response to the underpants bomber attack has been nothing short of obscene.  Rachel Maddow put together a wonderful presentation on this.  Although I covered a mot of this Tuesday and Yesterday, she does such a wonderful job of connecting the dots that it\u2019s well worth the time to watch   Visit msnbc.com for […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}