http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/08/obama-invokes-the-success-of-bush-cheney-security-policy-as-grounds-for-his-complacency.php Posted on August 31, 2014 by Paul Mirengoff
Obama invokes success of Bush-Cheney security policy as grounds for his complacency
As we have often observed, and did so again in the post just below this one, Team Obama specializes in excuses for inaction and complacency in the face of the threat posed by ISIS and other Islamic terrorists. But I never thought that, among its excuses, would be praise for the policies of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
Yet, as Daniel Halper reports, President Obama used just that excuse at a fundraiser in Rhode Island last night. Obama told Democrat fat cats that despite what “seems like. . .just wave after wave of upheaval, most of it surrounding the Middle East,” presently there is little reason for alarm:
The good news is that we actually have a[n] unprecedented military capacity, and since 9/11 have built up a security apparatus that makes us in the here and now pretty safe. We have to be vigilant, but this doesn’t immediately threaten the homeland. What it does do, though, is it gives a sense, once again, for future generations, is the world going to be upended in ways that affect our kids and our grandkids.
Naturally, Obama didn’t identify the leaders who, after 9/11, built the security apparatus that “makes us in the here and now pretty safe.” Clearly though, as Halper says, the architects were “President George W. Bush, with the assistance of his faithful vice president, Dick Cheney,” sometimes over the objections of Barack Obama and many of his fellow liberal Democrats.
Putting aside Obama’s praise for the policies of Bush and Cheney, his statement in Rhode Island manifests a shocking degree of complacency. Is it really “good news” that we are “pretty safe”? Is “pretty safe” the standard that Obama is willing to settle for?
And is the upheaval in the Middle East a matter of concern only for “our kids and our grandkids”? ISIS is well on its way to establishing a state roughly the size of New England. Iran is well on its way to developing nuclear weapons.
The dangers to our homeland posed by these developments cannot be characterized as something that will affect only our kids and grandkids. 9/11 teaches us that much.
Obama has consistently and vastly underestimated the threat posed by ISIS, a group he dismissed last winter as “the jayvee.” It seems that even now, Obama has not learned this lesson.
