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Presidential Super Bowl Interview; Buzz Kill

Katie Couric White House Interview During Super Bowl Preview


After a decent couple of hours of a Super Bowl preview, CBS ran a live, softball interview between Katie Couric and President Obama that covered many of the areas of interest to the American public. The result; finger pointing and excuses.


National Security


Should the Christmas Day bomber have been read his Miranda rights after only 50 minutes of “interrogation”? According to the President, this 50 minutes was sufficient as we got actionable intelligence out of him. Did we get all of it? Most probably not, but the President seemed fine with that. Should the terror trial be held in NYC. Not if the police, the people and the mayor don’t want it there.
Is that how a president makes decisions? By consensus or by the polls?

All in all, this was a platform for the President to place blame and give excuses for much of what has gone wrong in his first year.

Healthcare


The President, in recent statements has said that he did not adequately articulate the basics of the healthcare proposal that he and the Democrats in Washington tried to ram through. This is a bit surprising given the number of town hall meetings and television appearances by the President and his minions.

After the full-court press that was put on by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of the administration, the President commented that he has been frustrated by the process. That the giveaways to certain states was not something that made him particularly happy. This seems disingenuous at best, a potential jumble of the truth to say the worst.

Some quick observations, but the end result is that this was merely more of the same. A friendly interview by the main stream media and rhetoric from the President lacking in any substance.

Taliban leadership: One down, thousands to go

Reports of Pakistani Taliban Leader Killed

The unconfirmed reports that Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud was killed has appeared to set in motion the jockeying among potential suitors for his position. This is evidence of the problem faced by the United States and the rest of the world in trying to eliminate the threat we face from fundamentalist terrorist organizations. The head can be chopped off, but there is no shortage of candidates to take its place.

This seems to be the delusion held by many that only one man can lead a movement that is so ideologically bent on the destruction of the west. The reality, unfortunately, is that there are many. Killing one does not destroy the movement, but may only slow it down temporarily if that.

Maulvi Noor Jamal Appears To Be Frontrunner

In much the same way that politicians in the United States go to rally’s and kiss babies to gain favor with the electorate, Jamal reportedly appeared in a video in which two men and a boy were being flogged. A quote by a former resident of Kurram, Pakistan could be used as a campaign slogan:

“He kills humans like one will kill chickens”

Not exactly “I Like Ike”, but yet additional anecdotal evidence, as if any were needed, of the scope of the problem that we face.

From the Examiner

Senator Bond: Security over politics

White House Cites Information Obtained From Christmas Day Bomber Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab As Justification For Mirandizing Terror Suspects

Senator Kit Bond has issued a letter to President Obama, in which he protests the White House media briefing concerning the renewed cooperation of the Christmas Day terror suspect. Such a briefing says Senator Bond, serves only to alert our enemies with no other purpose achieved. In the case of Abdulmutallab, vital and actionable information was lost through the five week gap between the attempted plane bombing and his renewed speaking with the authorities.

Family Played A Key Role

While using the sudden urge of the suspect to talk as justification for treating terror suspects as criminals rather than enemy combatants, the reality in this case is that the family of Abdulmtallab played the key role in getting him to open up. By issuing Miranda rights less than an hour after capture, any immediate knowledge the suspect had as to terrorist locations, strategies and personnel is lost. Unless family can be counted on in every case to be there at the time of capture, ready and able to convince the captive to speak, the mirandizing of suspects puts the country in greater danger and goes against the concept of national security.

Some of the Senator’s Comments

“…It is deeply disturbing to me that the Intelligence Committee would be advised of sensitive information, and told of the vital imperative to keep such information secret for the sake of national security, only to see this information – less than twenty-four hours later –broadcast to the world from the White House.  This distortion of the congressional notification process suggests that other considerations are taking precedence over keeping timely and sensitive information away from our enemies.

Some have tried to use Abdulmutallab’s sudden cooperation as a justification for prosecuting this foreign terrorist in an Article III court, but I believe this development supports an opposing view.  Because we treated him in this fashion, we followed Miranda and advised him of his right to remain silent, losing five crucial weeks for obtaining imminent threat information.  Miranda is issued when statements from the accused are needed to obtain a conviction, but in this case we did not need his own statements as the chemical evidence he was wearing and over 200 witnesses would ably suffice; hence, the decision to Mirandize made no sense on a practical or strategic level.  Additionally, Abdulmutallab’s family was key in gaining his cooperation, and in most cases the suicide bomber does not have a moderate Islamic family willing to work with the United States; in fact, the opposite is most often the case (as with the suicide bomber that killed seven CIA officers in Khost, whose wife applauded her husband’s actions)…”

From Examiner.com