ABC's Jake Tapper, an ace reporter, assesses yesterday's war of words over White House fumbles in the XMAS bomber case. He looks at a USA Today Tuesday op-ed by WH terror chief John Brennan accusing the GOP of playing politics & hypocrisy, in a reply by Brennan to a Monday USA Today editorial undercutting WH claims. Tapper quotes a quick GOP reply from Senator Christopher "Kit" Bond (MO):
"The only one making this political is the White House. The Administration must do better, because trying to pass the buck for their dangerous decisions and divulging sensitive information to al Qaeda is not an effective terror-fighting strategy."
But here is more--much more--to Brennan's fakery....
Brennan cites two cases--the Richard Reid "shoe bomber" case and the Zaccharias Moussaoui "20th hijacker trial, as evidence of successful trials. Brennan got both cases more wrong than right. Reid pled guilty before trial, boasting proudly of his jihad--comments aimed not at Americans but a radical Islamists. Also, the military commission infrastructure had not yet been set up: though authorized Nov. 13, 2001, weeks before Reid's pre-XMAS arrest, it was years from being set up and allowed to go forward without legal challenge. The first military tribunal was allowed to go forward to completion, starting July 21, 2008--six months before President Bush left office.
As for Moussaoui's circus trial, the judge took the death penalty off the table when the prosecution declined to present senior terror operatives as witnesses and declassify requested data; only the intervention fo an appeals court saved the day. but that proved temporary, as Moussaoui took control of his trial, ranted and raved for his Islamist audience (again, not for us), and then, against the advice of his lawyer, took on the case and pled guilty. In the penalty phase he avoided death because one juror who was opposed to capital punishment successfully sneak onto the jury panel. Some success.
Brennan says that most of the intel gleaned from the XMAS bomber came after he was Mirandized. In that only 50 minutes of interrogation were logged before the detainee was Mirandized, this hardly surprises. Brennan does not, naturally, discuss that the WH claim that the original 50 minutes yielded all the intel detainee had, versus the later WH admission that added intel has been gathered from subsequent interrogations.
Then there is the trial Brennan does not mention: the mid-1990s World Trade Center I trial. With good reason: thought the blind sheik & accomplices were convicted, intel disclosed during the trial told one Osama bin Laden that he and 200 al-Qaeda operative were on America's terror watch list, and that bin Laden's calls were being remotely monitored.
NRO has a piece that further dissects Brenna's combination of mendacity, stupidity & just plain ignorance; 44's terror honcho is indeed a witless wonder to behold. Rep. Peter King (R-NY), a strong homeland security voice in Congress, calls Brennan an "egomaniac"; it is a mark as to how low Brennan has sunk that going Hollywood is a less unflattering explanation than others for his juvenile jeremiads against the GOP. Author Marc Theissen notes that the Washington Post & Dick Cheney agree with USA Today re Brennan & the administration's mishandling of the XMAS bomber case.
Bottom Line. LFTC readers know I rarely use strong language and try to give everyone the benefit of doubts--even those on the opposing side. But Brennan gives new meaning to political hack. Put simply, there is no doubt to give him the benefit of. We would be better off with a ventriloquist's dummy in his position.
Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, 9/11, National Security, Terrorism, Homeland Security
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