RSS Feed for This PostCurrent Article

Blair Fall Guy?

By John Batchelor on December 31, 2009 at 2:00 AM in Current Affairs

 

Solomon Golfing.  

01230_blair_ap_392_regular.jpg

Richard Clarke appears on GMA to launch a dart at the two targets that Rahm Emanuel has picked for blame and shame in order to explain the “failure” of Abdulmutallab.  The contestants begin with Dennis Blair, director of the National Counter Terrorism Center; and the fall-back fall-guy is the CIA collectively.

The White House messaging unit is till spinning fast and so this is not a settled tactic.  POTUS aims to appear Solomonic in his deliberations and decisions (and golf obsession), and the report is said to be released within the next twelve hours for publication on Thursday.

The White House is on all systems alert, at Defcon 3, with Rahm Emanuel working the phones to the Hill chairs and the Oahu White House.  Joe Lieberman and Bennie Thomspon are the two chairs of Homeland on the Hill and the two who will matter most for the upcoming hearings

What is enough sacrifice for Lieberman and Thompson.  Clarke here is leaning toward Blair.  Odds in London parlors?  Spend more time with the family?  Shopping his resume with Xe?

Yemen.

Unanswered questions remain:  What does the Obama administration know about the Yemen terror camps and when did it know it?

What did the Obama team inherit from the Bush team and what has been done with the information on Yemen?

Is Yemen the locus of what Al Q has become, (a much wider and looser enterprise called the International Front for Combatting the Crusaders and the Jews)?  (Yes.)

Does the White House believe the December 25 attack was in reaction to the December 17 and 24 cruise missile strikes on Yemen?  Who is running Yemen?  Does it suit Riyadh to dump its miscreants on Yemen?  Does it suit Sana’a to dumps its miscreants on Hatharmouth?

Does the Obama administration accede to this Devil’s deal?  Does POTUS make a speech about Yemen?  How long until the Marines are in Yemen?  What connection between Sana’a and the Houthis rebellion in the north which is a proxy war between Tehran and Riyadh?  And more.

  • Bronwyn

    So Richard Clarke is acting on behalf of Rahm et al?  And here i used to think highly of him … live and learn.

  • Doc99
  • I’m a Linda too

    I was just thinking the same thing.  How sad.  Is ego involved yet again?  Remember, Richard Clarke ENDORSED Barry and was an Adviser.  Talk about being disingenuous, “Homeland Security Department and the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI) were created. Inside the DNI, the National Counter Terrorism Center was created. These organisations were created to “connect the dots”. It may well be that the fault lay with NCTC and not the CIA”

  • jwrjr

    Ozero no doubt knows how many golf courses are in Yemen.  Whether he knows anything else about the country (or can even spell “Yemen”) is debatable.

  • tango

    The wheels of the Obama bus go round and round. Heck that bus gest almost as much mileage as Air Force One.

    I wonder what Blair knows and I wonder how much of it he’ll share with the public if “forced” to resign.  I know I wouldn’t go quietly. But then again, maybe he’s willing to take the fall and be rewarded somehow later on with a cushy private position thanks to the Chicago crew. That way, it looks like he’s punished but not really.

    As for Yemen, I’m curious too about who knows what. Never fear, they will find a way to blame it all on Bush and his Administration first and foremost.

  • TeakWoodKite

    Little by little, BO is painted into a corner by his own doing. Richard Clarke has paid his dues. If he wants to take shots at the Current DNI and head of CIA that is fine but he is not an idiot. He knows what he says has effect.
    I believe that Mr. Clarke is an honorable person and if you recall, the ONLY person to apoligize for his failing this country. Let ‘em.

    To bad the clip was a bite and and not enough to under stand the context.

  • Retired

    Oops!  Better pull back from blaming the CIA.  More news is coming out on the seven CIA officers killed at Khost base, right on the pointy end of the spear of countertarrorism.  AP is reporting that one of those killed was Chief of Base at Khost, a mother of three.  Note to Rhambo:  it isn’t going to look good trying to shift the blame to CIA for the underwear bomber when a mother of three in command of a CIA operation nose to nose with Al Quaeda was just killed.  Better find another fall guy.

    Sorry if the above offends some NQ readers, but I seek to draw a contrast between those who are willing to go out and fight for us at the pointy end of the spear, and it doesn’t get any more pointy than at Khost, and a White House that looks at everything through the prism of how it effects their domestic political fortunes.  I still haven’t heard anything from the White House on this yet, but perhaps after he finishes up the last hole, the President may take some time off from vacation to comment one way or the other.

  • Jazzman

    Joe Lieberman and Bennie Thomspon… might as well be the Marx Brothers…. Let me tell you how this will get really and truly fixed…. When people get killed  before Congress will stop playing ganes….

    Joe Lieberman is a democratic neo-con and is part of the problem not the solution…..

  • Jazzman

    Joe Lieberman and Bennie Thomspon… might as well be the Marx Brothers…. Let me tell you how this will get really and truly fixed…. When people get killed Congress will stop playing ganes…. 
     
    Joe Lieberman is a democratic neo-con and is part of the problem not the solution…..
    – Flag – Edit – Moderate

  • Jazzman

    Joe Lieberman and Bennie Thomspon… might as well be the Marx Brothers…. Let me tell you how this will get really and truly fixed…. When people get killed Congress will stop playing games….  
      
    Joe Lieberman is a democratic neo-con and is part of the problem not the solution…..

  • kbdabear

    http://spectator.org/archives/2009/12/31/the-politics-of-incompetence

    On December 26, two days after Nigerian Omar Abdulmutallab allegedly attempted to use underwear packed with plastic explosives to blow up the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight he was on, and as it became clear internally that the Administration had suffered perhaps its most embarrassing failure in the area of national security, senior Obama White House aides, including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and new White House counsel Robert Bauer, ordered staff to begin researching similar breakdowns — if any — from the Bush Administration.

    “The idea was that we’d show that the Bush Administration had had far worse missteps than we ever could,” says a staffer in the counsel’s office. “We were told that classified material involving anything related to al Qaeda operating in Yemen or Nigeria was fair game and that we’d declassify it if necessary.”

  • FLDemFem

    Oh come now! Surely you have realized that the really important thing is Obama’s ego, not the lives of American citizens. It’s more important for the White House to address any denigration of Obama than it is for them to address the safety issues connected to letting bombers on planes. After all, if Obama doesn’t feel good about himself, it just ruins the day for everyone!! Anyone who happens to get blown up, (thank goodness that didn’t happen this time!)can be glad they didn’t live to see Obama feeling badly about it because we only want him to feel good about himself. I am sure that is the mindset over at the White House. Now if we could only get someone in there who actually gives a damn about the average American. Someone not from Chicago.
    :-P

  • b mathews

    it took obama about 5 minutes to come out with a comment about  danny glovers remarks but 4 days to say anything about the christmas day bomber and still nothing from him about the CIA massacre.  its obvious where his priorities are.