…its that they are bloated and inefficient too, and surprisingly, at least for now, airports can tell them, the TSA, to leave.

Federal law allows airports to opt for screeners from the private sector instead. The push is being led by a powerful Florida congressman who’s a longtime critic of the Transportation Security Administration and counts among his campaign contributors some of the companies who might take the TSA’s place.

And it’s not just because of the national attention that their roaming hands are garnering on the news and on the web.

“I think we could use half the personnel and streamline the system,” Mica said Wednesday, calling the TSA a bloated bureaucracy.

the top executive at the Orlando-area’s second-largest airport, Orlando Sanford International Airport, said he plans to begin the process of switching to private screeners in January

“I am a frequent air traveler and I have experienced … TSA agents who have let the power go to their head,” Erickson said. “You can complain about those people, but very rarely does the bureaucracy work quickly enough to remove those people from their positions.”

Is this yet another sector that could be performed better, faster, cheaper than by the government?

Former President Bush waxes transparently, assessing his own presidential shortcomings:

The former president said he still feels “sick about” the fact no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. His response to Hurricane Katrina could have been quicker, he said, and he should have landed Air Force One two days after the storm instead of viewing the destruction through the plane’s window. And he said he didn’t see the financial meltdown coming.

Why?

Why?!

Why?!!!!

Why…Mr. President, did you have to do this on Oprah?

PS Don’t feel bad Mr. President. Warren Buffet and a the vast majority of the world of finance didn’t see it coming either.

Bush had nothing negative to say about President Barack Obama, whom Winfrey famously supported in 2008.

“I didn’t like it when people criticized me,” Bush said. “And so you’re not going to see me out there chirping away (at Obama). And I want our president to succeed. I love our country.”

George Bush may not have been conservative enough for many of us, but I believe he was honest in his dealings as President and he remains to this day one of the most respectable, reverent and selfless leaders to have ever occupied the White House.

…in stark contrast with The One there now.

Yeah, we miss you now.

Watching this piece from “UN Watch” – in which a retired British army officer defends the IDF’s relentlessly-scrupulous efforts to avoid civilian casualties during their last counter-terror assaults against Hamas in Gaza…

…I’m reminded of my conversation with Keith Ellison last year on Marty Owings’ “Radio Free Nation”.

ME:  (after reading the part of the Hamas Charter that calls for the destruction of Israel and the extermination of Judaism); “So, Representative Ellison; do you repudiate Hamas’ call for the extermination of the Jews?”

REP. ELLISON:  “How many Palistinians do you know?”

Thanks, Minneapolis.  You done Minnesota proud.

Next time you’re standing barefoot in the TSA line getting a rectal probe and watching them toss your toothpaste and shampoo, just remember – the system sort of barely works, if everything goes right and everyone is lucky as hell:

The Obama administration played down the fact that Shahzad, a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, made it aboard the plane. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wouldn’t talk about it, other than to say Customs officials prevented the plane from taking off. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the security system has fallback procedures in place for times like this, and they worked.

And Attorney General Eric Holder said he “was never in any fear that we were in danger of losing him.”

But it seemed clear the airline either never saw or ignored key information that would kept Shahzad off the plane, a fact that dampened what was otherwise hailed as a fast, successful law enforcement operation.

I’m going to start a website where people can find when Dutch documentary filmmakers are travelling, and on which flight.

But thank heavens for small favors; Secretary Napolitano didn’t order her investigators to drop the search for Taliban sympathizers to focus on the NRA.

America’s big advantage in the Revolution, says popular American history, is the American tradition of marksmanship.  The British, marching in their red coats through the woods, were hapless targets for backwoodsmen with Pennsylvania and Kentucky rifles that could score aimed hits on man-sized targets from four times the effective range of the British smoothbore muskets. 

While the conventional narrative is simplistic (the average Continental Army soldier was not a backwoodsman or a marksman), it’d seem that the Brits have managed to even things out; a British sniper has scored the longest-ranged kill in the history of the rifle:

Corporal of Horse Craig Harrison fired his consecutive shots from such a long distance that they took almost three seconds to reach their targets.

This was despite the 8.59mm bullets leaving the barrel of his rifle at almost three times the speed of sound.

The distance to his two targets was 8,120ft, or 1.54 miles – according to a GPS system – and about 3,000ft beyond the weapon’s effective range.

The 35-year-old beat the previous sniper kill record of 7,972ft, set by a Canadian soldier who shot dead an al Qaeda gunman in March 2002.

Not one hit at a mile and a half; three consecutive ones:

Speaking about the incident, Cpl of Horse Harrison said: “The first round hit a machine gunner in the stomach and killed him outright. He went straight down and didn’t move.

“The second insurgent grabbed the weapon and turned as my second shot hit him in the side. He went down, too. They were both dead.”

The serviceman then fired a third and final round to ensure the machine gun was out of action.

Can America put up with this usurpation of our heritage?

On 9/11, I was 38, with a bad eye and a bad knee and a couple of kids.   The thought flashed through my head not a few times in the next year or three; “I wish I was ten years younger, had two kids’ fewer obligations, and was in the kind of shape I was in before I got married and had kids”, so I could have done something in the war that had just come to us.

Seeing  this bit here, I see that in fact I can:

The Demos think tank recommends that shows – such as Jihad! The Musical or the film Four Lions, by the Brass Eye satirist Chris Morris – should be used to highlight the failings of violent philosophies.

“Hey, Abu – I had a keffiyeh like that – til my dad got a job!”

With the government’s sudden fixation with violence and terrorism (as defined by Janet Napolitano, at any rate), it’s worth going over what “security” is.

The big picture, of course, is important; government has a constitutional duty to defend the country.  It’s one of a very, very short list of duties actually spelled out for a legitimate government in the Constitution; it’s one of the few legitimate reasons any government exists. 

Secure the borders?  Absolutely.  There is not a nation in the world worth the title that doesn’t protect its own sovereignty.  There’s a reason for this; we formed a nation for a reason.  We intend it to be disctinct from other nations.  If tomorrow all of the world’s other nations upheld freedom, the rule of law, the value of the individual, and (after November, 2012, God willing) the free market.  Of course, the United States is a nation of immigrants, and indeed we need immigrants to keep rejuvenating this nation; nations with unchanging cultures become ossified and stagnant.  But the key is that immigrants must come to the United States, rather than bringing Ireland or Finland or Greece here. 

But that’s fodder for the upcoming “Culture” installment.

Protecting us from criminals?  Yep.  That too.  The law-abiding citizen should be secure on his/her property, with his/her possessions, and his/her rights.  The law should

Which is where government keeps screwing up.  It’s not just governments run by crime bosses and warlords – Russia and Tadjikistan and the Congo – that break this rule.   In the UK, a law-abiding citizen who defends his home, property or self from a burglar, robber or attacker with any kind of force frequently faces stiffer punishment than the criminal involved.  In Chicago – a city prowled by gangs armed barely a degree behind the Fedayin Saddam fashion curve – the full weight of the city’s legal system waits to fall upon the citizen who dares resist the thugs with a .22 handgun.

Any dictator can make you “secure”; the streets of Rome were safe enough under Mussolini.  But that’s not security, any more that a dictator (or university dean) giving you a few minutes to say what you want within a bunch of carefully set-up guidelines is “freedom of speech”.  “Security” that exists only at the pleasure and to the purposes of ones’ leaders – masters, really – isn’t security at all.  It’s the kind of “Security” that a flock of sheep get when escorted by a pack of wolves; it exists only for the needs of the wolves, not the flock.

“No problem, Mitch.  America’s not like that!”

Gun control laws that burden the law-abiding more than criminals – that’s almost all of them – don’t enhance “security”. 

Property forfeiture laws that penalize the innocent (which one is supposed to be, until proven guilty) do not make us more “secure”.

Federal “watch lists” that stimatize mainstream (if temporarily out-of-power) dissent make us less secure.

A government policy that is more accomodating to those that would kill us than to those who have defended us doesn’t make us more secure.

That’s what I want; that’s what this nation needs; a government that knows “Security” protects the nation while upholding the citizen.

Wow.  I am an extremist!

A South Korean navy/coast guard ship has sunk in an area that both Koreas have been fighting over for the past sixty years.  Nobody’s ruled out a North Korean torpedo attack yet:

The ship, on a routine patrolling mission with 104 crew members on board, began sinking off the coast of South Korean-controlled Baengnyeong Island close to North Korea around 9:45 p.m. (1245 GMT, 9:45 a.m. EDT), an official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported an explosion in the rear of the 1,200-ton ship and said the military had not ruled out the possibility of an attack by North Korea. However, the military official said the exact cause was not immediately clear and said he could not confirm the Yonhap report.

As this is written, only half the crew is accounted for. 

Rumors that the Obama Administration is planning to respond by apologozing for the arrogant landings at Inchon are strictly unconfirmed.

Google Street Maps photographed and display the gate and perimeter of the headquarters of the British Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment – the unit from which Delta Force was descended.

The Brits are not amused:

Military chiefs and MPs blasted internet giant Google today after its Street View service included detailed pictures of the headquarters of the SAS.

Internet users can peer around the entrance to Credenhill, Herefordshire, which has never before appeared on maps for security reasons.

On the one hand, the Brits have a long tradition of keeping their special forces out of the public eye (although not all of the Regiment’s former members cooperate).

On the other hand…:

MPs and military top brass have demanded Google removes the pictures, claiming it makes the SAS a target for terrorist attacks.

Lib Dem Hereford MP Paul Keetch said: ‘The footage is simply not acceptable during a time of perceived terrorism…’I wouldn’t want a terrorist to be inspired by these pictures and it would be appalling if any help at all was given to our enemies.

‘We all know where the Palace of Westminister is, we all know where the SAS camp is, but the issue is if you’re going into such detail in such a way that you can undermine the security of that building, that could be a problem.’

…attacking the SAS’ headquarters seems a bit like diving into the tiger pen at the zoo to fight for the Big Mac you just dropped.

I’m not sure what’s dumber; that besieged Danish “Mohammed” cartoonist Lars Vilks told a Swedish newspaper how he planned on dealing with killers who – according to some reports – American “Jihad Jane” was recruiting to try to assassinate him…:

The latest threat to Lars Vilks emerged yesterday when seven people were arrested in Ireland accused of plotting to kill the 63-year-old artist.

Mr Vilks responded by saying that he was ready for them. “If something happens, I know exactly what to do,” he said.

His home in southern Sweden now contains a barbed-wire sculpture that could electrocute potential intruders, a secure space to hide in and an axe which will allow him “to chop down” anyone breaking in through his windows.

…or that the press printed it.

Dear terrorist/stalkers/burglars; no boobytraps in my house.  Pinky swear.

Iranian sock-puppet “president” Ahmadinejad says 9/11 was an inside job…

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday called the September 11 attacks on the United States a “big fabrication” that was used to justify the U.S. war on terrorism, the official IRNA news agency reported.

…guaranteeing him a post-term job either on Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, or writing for Minnesota “Progressive” Project along with 9/11 truther Grace Kelly.

It’s good to see the lad planning ahead.

The good news:  The Eunuchbomber’s underwear bomb probably wouldn’t have destroyed the 747.

A bomb on board a U.S. Christmas Day flight would have failed to bring the plane down even if it had been detonated successfully, a new test explosion suggests.

A controlled blast on a Boeing 747, using the same explosives that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of smuggling on board, failed to burst the fuselage.

It means, had the bomb exploded on December 25, Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit would have successfully landed .

Testing showed that the a charge the size of the underwear bomb would have sprung some rivets and bulged some fuselage skin – bad for resale value, of course – but not compromised the plane’s structural integrity or blown up its fuel tanks.

The bad news?  Now the terrorists know this.

Michael Yon reprints a letter from an officer in the 82nd Airborne; at a firebase in remote Afghanistan, our Spanish allies are apparently O making life just a little bit miserable for our troops stationed there:

2) Qal E Naw: The Spanish are not interested in helping in anyway, and are trying to make us decide to leave based on their unacceptable treatment of Americans. Our refuelers [soldiers who refuel helicopters] that are living there have to run out, unroll the hoses, pull security, and roll everything back up. They have asked for gravel along the FLS as it is currently calf deep mud, but the Spanish refuse to make any improvements. They asked for a T barrier (just one) to put at a 45 degree angle outside the fence where the FARP [Forward Arming and Refueling Point; where helicopters land for ammo and gas] has to be set up so they can run for cover in case there is small arms fire, the Spanish say no and refuse to make any improvements. They asked for a small gate where their billets are located so they can access the FARP directly rather than going a half mile loop to get out the gate, but the Spanish said no and refuse to make any improvements.

It’s not just logistics – it’s the petty stuff, too:

They [sic] guys are living hard (we understand that) but have to do laundry by hand as all of their stuff is stolen if they turn it into the laundry, they discussed this with the Spanish, but they refuse to many any improvements.

And not-so-petty:

They refused to allow a Marine detachment that was dropped there to come into the wire or feed them overnight. Our refuelers had to fight the Spanish to bring them in and squeeze them into the two small tents that they have and give them MREs as they [sic] Spanish wouldn’t feed them. Is this how we allow our Coalition partners to treat Americans?

Well, that’ll be intersting.

Yon:

So, our soldiers and Marines, living in rough conditions at the far tip of the spear, apparently are being treated with contempt, with all basic support denied, from laundry to the conditions of the field on which our troops do their thankless job. If this report is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, the Spanish are endangering the lives of our warriors by failing to provide basic safety.

Yon is going to get his report to Defense Secretary Gates.

Go read the whole thing.

Look – I have utmost respect for the ideals of the scientific method; the rigor and skepticism that one must bring to genuine inquiry.

And so while I’m the last person in the world to try to turn the recent revelations that Dr. Bruce Ivins – the FBI’s prime suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five Americans, who killed himself as the investigation closed in – was a cross-dressing …:

After the Department of Justice last month formally closed its probe of the 2001 anthrax attacks, the FBI released the first batch of documents detailing the years-long investigation that ended with officials concluding that Bruce Ivins, a government scientist who committed suicide in July 2008, was responsible for the mailings that killed five victims. The records, released pursuant to Freedom of Information Act requests, portray Ivins as becoming increasingly unhinged as it became clear that he was the principal target of the FBI’s “Amerithrax” probe. Additionally, the memos–a selection of which you’ll find on the following pages–reveal how agents examined every aspect of Ivins’s life, monitored his e-mails, searched his trash, and were even surveilling his Maryland home at the exact time he was inside overdosing. Despite being an FBI target, Ivins was often forthcoming about the details of his strange obsessions and private life. For example, as seen below, when agents executed search warrants in late-2007, an FBI supervisor asked Ivins if he was worried about those raids. Ivins said he was, noting that he did things a “middle age man should not do,” adding that his actions would “not be acceptable to most people.” He then noted that agents searching his basement would find a “bag of material that he uses to ‘cross-dress,'” according to an interview report.

…stolen-panty-sniffing…

Three months before his suicide, surveillance agents sifted through trash Ivins left at his curb and discovered that the beleaguered scientist was disposing of pornographic magazines, fetish titles, and 15 pairs of stained women’s panties. When an FBI lab analysis of the underwear showed that semen was detected on 14 of the garments, a grand jury directive was issued to obtain DNA from Ivins.

…Obama supporter…

In a July 2008 e-mail, Ivins wrote that “Dick Cheney scares me. The Patriot Act is so unconstitutional it’s not even funny.” He added, “I’m voting for Obama!”

…with an odd sense of priorities…:

A laboratory co-worker reported that Ivins hated the New York Yankees and thought New Yorkers were “elitist.”

…into some elaborate generalization about people with whom I disagree about politics, my respect for science means I have to admit I have no evidence that says I should discount the theory, either.

It’s science.  Just saying.

(more…)

From Michael Yon’s Facebook page:

Yesterday at 0735 local, a suicide car bomb attacked a US convoy crossing a bridge only about ten minutes from the major base called Kandahar Airfield. The car bomb blew an MRAP off the bridge, killing a US soldier and injuring several others. Another bomb had been planted under the… bridge. This bridge is easily defensible and of great significance.

Just another bridge?

Not hardly:

Yet while some troops go weeks or longer with no showers, fighting in rough conditions with no amenities, many troops on this base play hockey or, just the night before, had stopped nearly everything to watch the Olympics. Meanwhile, a bridge of strategic importance sat thinly guarded just minutes down the road. And so now, the bridge is damaged and large military vehicles and fuel trucks cannot use it. There is no reasonable way around.

Priorities?

Today we talk about an offensive in Kandahar, yet there is a General here who cannot guard a single bridge just outside the gate. That bridge is our LINK TO KANDAHAR. Meanwhile, soldiers who are doing six month easy-tours complain about R&R and morale boosters, while many soldiers who serve full-year combat tours don’t take showers.

Why are live bands streaming into here? What is this, an Amusement Park or a War?

That General needs to be fired. Dead weight at the top cannot be tolerated.

Yon is the Ernie Pyle of this generation.  It’s a shame the mainstream media won’t recognize it, although I suspect Yon doesn’t care.

Right after the inauguration last year, I was guesting on Marty Owings’ internet talk show Radio Free Nation (which still appears on Saturday nights).  The show was pretty diverse; you had a center-lefty (Marty) and a group of far, far, far lefties.  And me.

Anyway – I made a fearless prediction for them.  Barack Obama would not get us out of Iraq; he would not resolve the Afghan situation; he would not close Guantanamo or end rendition; and he would not change  Bush-Administration policies like the Patriot Act.

Was I right?

Well, duh; it doesn’t take any more of a rocket surgeon today to figure out that Obama is an emptier suit on foreign policy and defense than on most topics than it did a year ago.

The funny part?  He tried to do it on the sly:

With virtually zero debate – or media attention – President Barack Obama has signed a one-year extension for what many considered the most crucial and controversial aspects of the USA PATRIOT Act. The provisions, set to expire Sunday without the signature of Obama, include extensions to allow:

-1) “roving” wiretaps, permitting surveillance on multiple phones and e-mail addresses.

-2) court-approved seizures of records and property in anti-terrorism operations.

-3) surveillance on “lone-wolf” foreign nationals, who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.

Originally set to expire in December, a two-month extension was passed by Congress late last year.

Simple fact:  Dick Cheney is Barack Obama’s foremost counterterror strategist.

Background:  Totalitarians always have a yin to play against an unruly yang.  The Roman emperors had a Praetorian Guard to protect them from the Army, just in case.  When the Red Army got to powerful and influential, Stalin sicced the KGB on their leadership; when the KGB in turn got big enough to threaten him, he turned the Army and the Party on them, killing its leadership.  Likewise, Hitler had the SS – which pledged loyalty to him at the Party directly – to serve as an insurance policy against the Wehrmacht, whose Prussian Junker leadership was loyal to the German state, drawing Hitler’s distrust; the SS “Blackshirts” themselves were a response to what Hitler saw as the excessive power in the hands of the SA (“Brownshirts”), whom he formed the SS to counter and, eventually, dismantle.  Saddam Hussein had multiple levels of backups; against the Army, he had the Republican Guards – again, smaller but better trained and better-equipped – and beyond that, a smaller, even more elite group of guards in case the Republican Guard got uppity.

Iran has had the same arrangement for most of the past thirty years.  The Iranian Army – once by far the largest in the Middle East, and by far the best-equipped in the Moslem world – was cut town to size after the Revolution, and especially after the Iran-Iraq War, as the mullahs established an “elite”, or at least intensely-loyal, “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” (IRGC).  The IRGC were the foot soldiers and muscle of the Revolution, and developed over time into an entire parallel military, serving the mullahs directly in parallel to the regular (and now cash-starved) regular Iranian military, which is a faint shadow of its shah-era self.

According to Time, that development has continued; the IRGC has taken over Iranian policy:

On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton finally got around to acknowledging what a lot of people have known since Iran’s contested election last June — there’s been a military takeover in that country, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) grabbing every important lever of power. As Clinton put it during a televised town-hall meeting, “The Supreme Leader, the President [and] the parliament is being supplanted, and Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship.”

No doubt one reason it took Clinton so long to admit that the mullahs have been forced to cede power to the IRGC, Iran’s élite military force, is that Washington hates to be the bearer of bad news, especially news that moves us closer to war.

Especially when the Administration’s campaign-era pledge was that to deal with the mullahs, all you needed was love.

Since its birth in 1979, the IRGC has been the hardest of the hard core of Ayatullah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution. It thrives in confrontation with the U.S. and Israel, and does even better when Iran is at war. The IRGC looks at the 1982-2000 war in Lebanon as its most glorious moment, when its proxy Hizballah forced the West and Israel out of Lebanon. It left Hizballah with the enviable reputation of being the only force in the Middle East to have beaten both the West and Israel. Not to mention that Hizballah is now the de facto government in Lebanon. No wonder the IRGC would like an encore in the West Bank and Gaza, where it has been arming militants for more than a decade.

There’s method to what we in the West could consider the Madness:

It may make us feel better to label the IRGC as a terrorist organization, but it’s more instructive to look at things from the IRGC’s perspective. It truly believes that its brand of asymmetrical warfare can defeat a modern, well-equipped force in a limited war. It did so in Lebanon, and given the right circumstances, it would do so in other parts of the Middle East. But the real point is that in a limited war with the U.S. and Israel, the IRGC could predominate, or at least wear us down to the point that we would decide it’s better to settle.

And as western thinkers have known for centuries – nothing takes the pressure off a dictator like a perennial state of war:

With inflation and unemployment running at 30% in Iran, continuing demonstrations in the country and shaky oil markets, the Obama Administration should be considering the distinct possibility that the IRGC may welcome an open conflict with the U.S. (and Israel), its coup d’état solidified.

All by way of saying; it’s possible we’re not re-living the Carter years in nearly every coneptual particular.  I’m just not seeing it.

Whatever else we may say about the Administration, at least they held the line on Iraq. 

When then-Senator Joe Biden had the opportunity to call for a withdrawal, and for the partition of Iraq into three states, thank goodness he held the line. 

When then-Senator Obama had the option to vote with the rest of his party against the war, thank heavens Obama’s wisdom caused him to look past short-term polling and vote for perseverence.

And when the time came to fish or cut bait with the 2006 troop surge to exploit the newfound successes of the “Anbar Awakening”, thank the good Lord that Barack Obama and Joe Biden bet long and supported Gen. Petraeus’ plans and the efforts of our troops.

All that perseverence paid off during the 2008 Presidential Campaign, when both Obama and Biden bucked the left’s base and demanded resolution and perseverence in Iraq, that our sacrifices and those of the Iraqi people would not be in vain.

And so thank you, Vice President Biden.  Your claiming of credit on Larry King last night was so well-earned…

…I’m sorry. I can’t keep a straight face anymore.  I’m lying.

But then, so was Vice President Biden, when he actually claimed credit for the Administration on its stance in Iraq. 

Andrew Malcolm in the LATimes:

Now, the Obama-Biden pair that opposed the Iraq war and its tactics and predicted their failure is prepared to accept credit for its success.

It seems that Biden, who’s from Delaware when he’s in Delaware and Pennsylvania when in Pennsylvania, is certain now that Iraq will turn out to be one of the Obama-Biden administration’s greatest achievements.

No, really.

Here’s how Biden put it to Lar:

I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.

I spent — I’ve been there 17 times now. I go about every two months — three months. I know every one of the major players in all the segments of that society. It’s impressed me. I’ve been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences.

Biden did not elaborate on what all the administration’s other “great achievements” were so far.

There’s your Hope and Change; Biden hopes you don’t notice he’s changed history.

(With thanks to commenter Fingers.  When I first read the headline on Drudge, I thought it said “Iran“, not Iraq.  Oy.).

Remember the great lefty whinge during the Bush Administration – “you called us unpatriotic?”

(Of course, no lefty could name a single significant conservative who had called all liberals unpatriotic, or who were referrring to defined groups of lefties whose stances were proudly anti-American, or who were referring to specific policies that, they claimed, actively harmed US interests and endangered the United States; when pressed to provide same, the examples inevitably turned up to be one of the three limited cases above, and they always will.  But I digress).

But now that they’re in power?

Criticizing the Administration’s handling of the Eunuchbomber is…well, you know where this is going, don’t you?

In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan — Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism — responds to critics of the Obama administration’s counterterrorism policies by saying “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.”

Hm. 

Brennan writes that, “Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill.”

Right.  But they deserve the response we hope to enact; extinction.

But let’s be honest; after all their lofty campaign rhetoric, the Administration is finally learning how to deal with terrorists.

From Dick Cheney.

I’m not one of those conservatives who reflexively bashes government employees’ intelligence, motivations and personalities.  Some of my best friends – people I know, with brains and honorable motives – work at all levels of government, in all kinds of jobs.  Not a one of them went into government because it was the only job they could qualify for (well, mostly; there’s no real private-sector market for fighter pilots).

Government, itself?  That’s another story.  I believe in closely scrutinizing any government agency, especially those that aren’t directly involved with defending our nation’s security.

Apropos not much – but we’ll come back to it.

The Strib is shocked, shocked, in the wake of the alleged Abdulmutallab bombing attempt, that privacy-rights activists ever opposed full-body scanning at airports:

Even more troubling is the extent to which privacy activists have been able to influence the political debate and restrict the use of whole-body imaging scanners in U.S. airports. To rally the opposition, the term “virtual strip search” has been used, conjuring images of Transportation Security Administration TSA screeners huddled around computers ogling the most shapely passengers.

Right.  Because TSA employees are ascetic monks, immune to temptation.

That ridiculous scenario was too much for our elected officials, and the House overwhelming passed a nonbinding measure in June to prevent the scanners from being used for primary screening. The brainpower behind the amendment, rookie Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, referred to screened images as “TSA porn” and came up with this wonderful but ill-informed sound bite: “Nobody needs to see my wife and kids naked to secure an airplane.”

The Strib editorial board chides the privacy activists for their close-mindedness, in terms that stop just a little short of “why do Rebublicans hate airline passengers?”.

Now, I don’t have a huge problem with full-body scanning in and of itself, as a form of technology.  It’s what it represents – and what the Strib, and by extension the rest of the left and media, have seemed to embrace over the past eight years – that is the problem.

The implication on the part of the Strib is that we, the public, should shut up and undergo whatever indignity our betters decide is best for us, because that’s our betters’ job.  It puts all of the many burdens – inconvenience, implied suspicion, humiliation – on the travelling public. Of course, these measures are all, universally, reactive – which means that terroriosts will find a way around them (if they haven’t already); the scanning, with its intrusion and indignity, will also be useless.  Not that it’ll go away.

But the Strib has consistently opposed the measures that’d put the burden on the would-be terrorists; they opposed wiretapping Americans for whom there exists a reasonable suspicion.  When a group of citizens reacted with suspicion to a group of Muslin clerics whose behavior seemed, at this remove, stranger than Abdulmutallab’s, the Strib pilloried them, and those who defended them, as racists.  The Strib couldn’t possibly abide by the concept of “profiling” – focusing security’s efforts on those most likely to cause problems, 20-40 year old middle-to-upper-middle-class Muslim men – even though that’s precisely what Israel’s El Al, one of the biggest terrorism targets in the world, has done to make themselves perhaps the safest airline in the world.

In other words, the Strib is fine with measures that demean and degrade you, Joe and Jane Citizen, provided that they are utterly politically correct, and without regard to the fact that they are in the long run completely useless.

Thanks, Strib.  Same to you.

…that was supposed to send you to meet your 72 virgins, but instead only burned your nether regions like a forgotten barbecue…

…and it was never intended to work, because it was all for practice?

Man videotaped the entire NWA flight, including the detonation of the squib undies (emphasis added):

[Patricia Keepman and her family, including two newly-adopted Ethiopian kids] were sitting about 20 rows behind Abdulmutallab, in a center aisle with her husband and daughter a row ahead of her and their two new adopted children, a six-year-old girl and an eight-year-old boy.

Her daughter said that ahead of them was a man who videotaped the entire flight, including the attempted detonation.

“He sat up and videotaped the entire thing, very calmly,” said Patricia. “We do know that the FBI is looking for him intensely. Since then, we’ve heard nothing about it.”

“We heard what sounded like an electrical pop to me. Everybody looked above their seats, kind of like startled, panicked. Shortly thereafter, we heard the screams. We could not see what was going on. We were too far back. We heard shouting, and you could hear the mayhem happening.

At that point, two flight attendants ran at full speed to get fire extinguishers.

So a guy calmly videotapes the whole thing?

Being calm if you think you’re going to meet your 72 virgins?  Perhaps.  Videotaping the whole thing?

I suspect Mr Abdulmutallab donated his fried nether regions in service of a practice run and an Al Quaeda training film.

Happy effing new year.

Remember – accoridng to Janet Napolitano, the real terrorists “human-caused-disaster, um, causing people” are “right-wing” terrorists.

So was Abdulmutallab a…:

Just curious.