Washington Update: The War on Error

[Freedom Is Not Free]

When a man with terrorist ties boarded a plane on Christmas Day with the intent to blow up hundreds of Americans, it became obvious that this administration didn't put the same priority on national security as seriously as its predecessor. Unfortunately, those mistakes are only mounting now that the Umar Abdulmutallab is in U.S. custody. Yesterday, during a shocking Senate hearing

http://www.freep.com/article/20100121/NEWS15/1210494/1320/Blunders-...

that exposed massive holes in the administration's security philosophy, Republicans grilled the intelligence community for failing to involve the appropriate counter-terrorism experts. Instead, officials at the Justice Department casually decided to try Umar in criminal court like they would an average street thug.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) was furious that a man committing an act of war against our country would be "given a Miranda warning and access to a defense lawyer," which, he said, "may have cost us crucial intelligence about current and future plots against our country." According to Sen. Sessions, "these failures are the product of efforts by the Obama administration to ignore the fact that we are at war." Instead, the White House is lavishing these terrorists with the same rights as the American citizens they're trying to kill. Interestingly enough, the President's national security shortcomings were a cornerstone of Scott Brown's Massachusetts campaign. Andrew McCarthy explained the strategy as part of a great column, "It's the Enemy, Stupid!"

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZTAyNjJiMGZmMWU4NGQ2MDZl...

"[Scott Brown] said the United States needs to stop apologizing for defending itself," McCarthy writes, "And he won... in the bluest of blue states."