ABC Examines and Exonerates

Newsbusters notes:

For the second time in two days, ABC attempted to exonerate Barack Obama from responsibility for a failed Christmas Day airline bombing. On Friday’s Good Morning America, Brian Ross spun, "Well, like another young president almost 50 years ago, Barack Obama found the so-called intelligence professionals, the veterans, the old hands, failed him and failed the country."

After placing the blame on everyone but the President, Ross oddly continued, "And as John Kennedy did when the CIA blew an invasion of Cuba in 1961, President Obama took responsibility for the failure to stop and spot the underwear bomber."

Nevermind going back 50 years, go back 8, and nevermind finding a scapegoat, eight years ago it was not only Bush's fault, some said it was a government conspiracy.

Sure, it looks like mistakes were made. But you expected perfect? inside of a huge collection of government agencies, given the astounding number of bodies getting onto airplanes every day?

Obama's part in this relates only to the direction and emphasis of his policies. Does he still want to win over Jihadis with good will and understanding? He must be getting close to realizing that nothing we do will make us the good guys in Arab eyes. His speech yesterday didn't say much, but at least he called it a war on terror.

So what do we do now? A name didn't make it onto the no-fly list -- so now it will become easier to get on the list, and mistakes will be made in the other direction. A year from now a grandmother from Nebraska will find herself stuck at the airport because her name got caught up in the better-safe-than-sorry attitude at the TSA.

Hey, but a year from now we may have had a successful eunuch-bomber. Obama's connection to that tragedy, should it occur, will relate to his desire for every terrorist to have a lawyer and constitutional rights. If the bad guy is someone he transferred to Yemen from Gitmo, well there's blame there for sure.

It's a shame that Obama has to learn everything the hard way. But at least he may be learning. I've got my fingers crossed anyway.