Rosen: The Great Equivocator - The Denver Post

Rosen: The Great Equivocator

By Mike Rosen
Posted: 01/07/2010 01:00:00 AM MST

President Obama is a cool customer, a charmer and a smooth talker. Sometimes he overdoes all of those things. That was the case in his belated response to the American people following the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner with almost 300 on board. Obama — who appeared to be annoyed that his Hawaiian vacation had been interrupted — at first attempted to downplay the attack, describing the Nigerian terrorist as an "isolated extremist." This was consistent with the administration's newspeak lexicon, replacing "terrorist acts" with "man-caused disasters" and ending the heretofore "global war on terrorism" by simply not speaking its name.

Reading from the same script, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano absurdly declared the bungled terrorism attempt proved "the system worked." If the "system's" success is dependent on the failure of a detonator to trigger an explosive cocktail in the underpants of an al-Qaeda-trained terrorist who had been allowed to board an American airliner after his identity and radical inclinations had been disclosed to U.S. intelligence authorities, then this administration is even more inept than I thought.

After it became public knowledge that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had links to an al-Qaeda network in Yemen, Obama's damage control effort took a new, even more troubling, course. The word "terrorist" was never uttered by the equivocator-in-chief when he referred to Abdulmutallab, the would-be suicidal mass murderer on Northwest's Flight 253 en route to Detroit. Instead, Obama repeatedly identified him as the "suspect" who "allegedly" tried to ignite an explosive device." That's the legalistic language of criminal prosecutors, defense attorneys and the ACLU.

But this is a war! We are under attack by fanatical Islamic jihadists who want to kill us. Adolf Hitler didn't "allegedly" order the Final Solution to exterminate millions of Jews; he did it. Adolf Eichmann wasn't the "suspected" architect of Hitler's vision; he was the architect.

Obama's tepid response to the Christmas terrorist attack, steeped in lawyerspeak, is disturbingly consistent with his administration's foolish and perilous policy of pretending the war being waged against us by jihadists, our nation's most serious threat since the Cold War, can be relegated to our criminal justice system. He presents himself to the world as the anti- Bush, bowing obsequiously to foreign potentates, ostentatiously apologizing to friend and foe alike, and naively attempting to ingratiate himself with the foulest villains from Iran to North Korea to Venezuela. It's not only failing, it's humiliating.

FDR didn't mince words when the Japanese struck on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. One can only imagine what a President Obama might have said:

"Today, a man-caused disaster occurred at our Naval Station in Pearl Harbor. While I regret the casualties and damage to equipment, I think, on balance, the system worked. In any event, I am launching an immediate investigation into how past American offenses may have instigated a justifiable response by the honorable nation of Japan, suspected of committing this alleged act. While the vast-right wing conspiracy led by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are demanding a rash, militaristic response, I am convinced this is a time for diplomacy, not belligerent retaliation. If, in fact, some among these island people are culpable in criminal mischief, the American people should rest assured that they will be subject to our legal system, with respect for due process and their inalienable rights under our Constitution.

"There are some, like my predecessor in this office, who might say history will regard Dec. 7, 1941, as a date which will live in infamy. I'd prefer to regard this as a teaching moment. When I earlier discussed my reaction to my wife, Michelle, she said that for the second time in her adult life, she's really proud of her country."