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John Brennan—
Connecting the Dots Spells Conflict of Interest
By: Kent Clizbe
On Christmas Day the now-infamous Panties Bomber spluttered
into the headlines. Riding the coattails
of a brave Dutchman, who actually put out the fire (did he extinguish the
Nigerian panties too?), the Obama administration’s answer to Janet Reno, Janet
Napolitano, declared that her system had worked just fine.
The President, pausing from his rounds of tropical golf and
topless body surfing, surfaced just long enough to tell his buddies on CNN and
MSNBC that our charred crotch immigrant was just a lone wolf extremist, or he
was “alleged” to be. Nothing to see
here, move along. Then our intrepid
President must have plunged back into the surf, or onto the fairway, secure in
the knowledge that his words had calmed the seas, lowered the waters, cooled
the planet, mollified Al-Qaeda, and soothed Kim Jong Il and the Iranians.
On further reflection, maybe his words were not quite
enough. Maybe Americans had heard his
throwaway lines one time too many. After
the Christmas weekend, evidently in no particular hurry, our leader’s aides
seem to have realized that his teleprompter may have been loaded up with sweet
nothings a little too quickly. He
emerged from his paradise hideaway again on Monday.
After Janet N’s incredible claims, Obama’s handlers realized
they had a Carter-sized problem on their hands.
Immediately the President began the finger pointing. Security and intelligence services had
failed. Dropped the ball. Failed to connect the dots.
But wait, this is the most intelligent president in the
history of the office. Surrounded by the
most intelligent, savvy, industrious, earnest, sincere and helpful staff and
cabinet ever. Plus ethical too. Our young president, buzz cut rapidly
graying, had pledged that he would fix all the idiotic things that the dunce he
replaced had screwed up.
Maybe Obama had just not yet gotten around to that
“protecting the country from terrorists” item on his agenda. Maybe he thought that his Cairo speech had
done the trick. Or maybe he thought that
Al-Qaeda had just hated Bush, and that his famous mental muscle was better
suited to really hard work, like health-care reform, global warming, choosing
the teams for the Sweet 16, or picking a name for his next puppy.
Whatever the reason, Umar from Nigeria, by way of Amsterdam,
on a Delta flight, got Obama’s attention.
And now Obama was primed to fix this whole “contingency” thing, or
whatever he and Janet had decided to call terrorism. Whatever they called it, he and his
Counter-terrorism advisor, John Brennan had assured us that we were NOT at war
with it.
Americans must seem like a funny bunch of whiners to the
President. Seemingly unaware, tone deaf,
and blind to American concerns and lifestyles, Obama seemed stunned when he
faced the press again, back in Washington, wearing a tie, 11 days after the
terror attack. Thin and reedy, Obama
read the text that declared that his intelligence and security services had
utterly failed by allowing this attack to happen.
White House staff released a photo of Obama appearing to
speak fiercely to his Cabinet before his speech. During the public speech, Obama declared his
system a disastrous failure. Okay so
far. But now his prescription: “I
directed my Counter-terrorism advisor, John Brennan, to lead a thorough review
into our terrorist watch-listing system so we can fix what went wrong.”
Now Barack has wandered into deep denial of reality. Brennan, a George Tenet lackey, hooked his
wagon to Obama’s star early enough that he became the candidate’s go-to-guy for
intel matters during the campaign.
Brennan rode that pony as far as it would go, until the rabid left-wing
forced his boss to throw his nomination to run the CIA out the window, due to
concerns about his role in “torture” (don’t get me going on that issue).
Brennan, a consummate bureaucrat and career CIA analyst, had
been the first director of the new “fusion centers” the 9/11 Commission
required—first the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) and then the
National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).
Their main job was to connect those pesky dots that the IC missed prior
to the 9/11 attack.
Brennan birthed dysfunctional twins, and left the government
soon after. He became a dreaded
contractor, cashing in for big bucks, and took the helm of a company that sold
intel products and services. Who would
his customer be? If you guessed NCTC,
you’d be right.
And what might Mr Brennan have been peddling to NCTC? A software system to connect the dots and
manage the terrorist watchlist! When
the time came to pay back Brennan for his dedication to the Obama campaign,
“the most ethical administration in history” promptly issued an ethics waiver
to Mr Brennan. Don’t worry, no conflicts
of interest. Move along, nothing to see
here.
Isn’t it fun to watch sausage being ground? A bureaucracy created to fix a system that
failed to connect the dots, led by Mr Brennan, buys a system designed to
connect the dots, sold by Mr Brennan.
When Brennan’s bureaucracy using Brennan’s system is declared an abject
failure, the administration’s solution is to have Mr Brennan undertake an
immediate investigation to connect the dots on the dot-connecting failure.
Nice work if you can get it.
Any bets on what Mr Brennan’s findings will be? The summary findings will be made public
later this week. Stay tuned. This could get interesting—sort of like a
train wreck.
1 comment:
Prescient.
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