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Valentine Christmas Bomber

By John Batchelor on February 11, 2010 at 10:45 AM in Current Affairs

Not Yet Hostile.

The thrill is gone for the captives of the White House Press Correspondence posse, and the sudden dour-faced and puckishly obtuse Robert Gibbs begins to show age, temper, and the limits of his imagination last Thursday 4 February — the last day the White House worked in DC before the Snowmageddon.

A year ago, Gibbs suggesting a senior Republican lawmaker, such as Kit Bond of Missouri, owes an apology to the White House over some indecipherable interpretation of who leaked what and when re the Christmas Bomber brouhaha.

Gibbs is dull even in his pique. This news cycle, the White House called Bond “pathetic.” The media is not sympathetic to Gibbs. Not yet hostile to the White House. But the giggle has left the building. Settling in for the second year of the Obama administration stall. No Valentine’s Day gifts to be exchanged.

Meanwhile, Senator Bond’s office, recognizing a huge opportunity, fired back on a snowbound day:

100210_brennan_bond_ap_328.jpg

“What’s pathetic, and I believe dangerous, is a White House more interested in name calling than a debate on our nation’sterror-fighting policiesthat must be changed to keep Americans safe from attack.”

Peter King

Spoke Homeland Security ranking member Peter King (R-3NY) re the Christmas Bomber case. King writes in an op-ed for USA Today in which he asserts that John Brennan of the White House misled lawmakers in the original brief on the detention of Abdulmutallab.

King tells me that Brennan is a thinks-he-is tough guy who treats everyone outside of his office with contempt and silence.

King calls Brennan “a control freak.”

“This is another case of John Brennan not knowing what he is talking about,” King tells National Review Online. “Brennan is trying to be cute by saying that on Christmas Day he briefed Republicans and Democrats. Leave aside the fact that he didn’t brief me, but he didn’t tell anybody anything that day other than the bare facts that were pretty much known to the public.

He said that [Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab] was in FBI custody. Now he’s claiming that that means he told people that [Abdulmutallab] was receiving Miranda rights and no one objected. If that’s what Brennan considers being honest and forthright, then we know that John Brennan is not being honest and forthright.”

  • arabella trefoil

    Robert Gibbs is smarmy. Why did Obama hire him? He seems an unlikely selection. Here’s a quote from the Financial Times article about Obama’s fabulous four cited in yesterdays post:

    <quote>’The most visible face of the White House for his sardonic daily briefings. Mr Gibbs, 38, is perhaps the least likely member of the circle – he is a career Democratic press officer from Alabama who quit John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign and shortly afterwards went to work for Senator Obama. A constant presence during the campaign, he is also seen as a keeper of the flame.’ </quote>
    Obama should have given the job to Michelle.

  • dead lark

    What is Valentine Christmas Bomber? Valentin Christmas Bomber is defined as the art of not speaking, the art of keeping silence, the art of using silence as a weapon against the enemy. It is a terrible weapon used mostly against enemies during their most special holidays.

    Valentine Christmas Bomber is the gift SOS Hillary Clinton is giving Admadinajad and his Ayatollahs on their 31st Iranian Revolution holiday.

    The saying goes that SOS HC believes in silence. ‘Lets give them the silent treatment.’ ‘Silence and saying nothing agravates Ahmadinajad and his Ayatollahs the worst.’

    The worst part of silence for them is that they don’t know what we will do next. They fear silence and now the Obama Administration through the agency of SOS HC is giving them dread.

    HC says that her husband has been so busy with H that he hasn’t have the time to tell her what to do. Says that as soon as he gets a break he will be able to tell her what to say and she will stop punishing Iran with her silence.

    In the meantime all the supporters of HC subscribe to the silence idea and think that silence is her best weapon. Says, silence has always work well for her when she is not able to talk to her husband first. And now with Bill Clinton, the most accomplished politician ever, so busy w H, silence suits just fine.

    Valentin Christmas Bomber is the gift of the bomb of silence. Dradful indeed. And the Obama Administration and the U.S. DOS use it against their enemies all the time.

    As opposed to Gen. McChrystal announcing to the Taliban in Helmand, Afghanistan that they will attack them shortly.

  • dead lark

    eddieb<img src=”http://cdn.js-kit.com/images/icon10-external-url.png”/> just said in another thread, Did you notice that Anthem Blue Cross just announced a rate increase of 39%? And 40% at HealthNet?

    I say, wow, that seems to me much more of a Valentine Christmas Bomber than anything else I have seen lately. Lets keep silent about this. Like Gibbs says, it is classified national security information. VCB it.

  • dead lark

    eddieb just said in another NQ thread, Did you notice that Anthem Blue Cross just announced a rate increase of 39%? And 40% at HealthNet?  
     
    I say, wow, that seems to me much more of a Valentine Christmas Bomber than anything else I have seen lately. Lets keep silent about this. Like Gibbs says, it is classified national security information. VCB it.

  • dead lark

    Health insurance is about the future. I think we can expect 2010 to bring us at least a 30 percent inflation in prices.

  • Peggy Sue

    If the President wants to really change the tone of things, he should start with Robert Gibbs.  The man is really awful at the job and does not reflect positively on the President or anything he’s doing [which doesn't appear to be much]. 

    Gibbs is snarky, rude and clumsy.  I’m not a Republican but one of the best Press Secretaries I remember is Tony Snow.  I did not believe in or approve of the Administration’s policies, but Snow was an asset to George Bush.  He did not duck questions and he always had grace and dignity during those pressers.

    What a difference!  Gibbs only serves to project a frat boy insolence and arrogance.

    The President would do himself a huge favor by switching the man out with someone else.

  • Diana L. C.

    I agree, and I also think that Snow’s successor, Dana Perino, was a well-spoken professional.  I didn’t like Bush at all, but his press secretaries didn’t make me want to slap them across their faces.

  • foxyladi14

    ok.ok. we agree  Gibbsie goes!!!!!!

  • GoreSnows

    Gibbs is an  asshole..!

  • stodghie

    gee i don’t the bummer has any winners! =-O

  • tango

    Per Jake Tapper:

    “White House Correspondents tell WHCInsider.com that Gibbs’ briefing room nickname is “The Gibbsnotist” for his ability to “bring the temperature down” and put some correspondents to sleep.”
     

    And Gibbs thinks he’s qualified to call Palin out for her palm crib notes? As if a Presidential Press Secretary boring reporters to sleep is at all qualified to pass judgement on how others handle the press in regards to being qualified. Say what you will about Palin, I bet reporters aren’t falling asleep when she’s answering questions. 

    http://www.whitehousecorrespondentsweekendinsider.com/2009/04/30/the-gibbsnotist/

    And Gibbs thinks he’s justified to call Palin out for her palm crib notes? As if a Presidential Press Secretary boring reporters to sleep has any call to make fun of others and how they handle the press.  Say what you will about Palin, I bet reporters aren’t falling asleep when she’s answering questions so for that reason alone, she outshines Gibbs by a mile. 

    Gibbs is a smarmy jerk and the Obama Admistration deserves him.

  • tango

    Per Jake Tapper:  
     
    “White House Correspondents tell WHCInsider.com that Gibbs’ briefing room nickname is “The Gibbsnotist” for his ability to “bring the temperature down” and put some correspondents to sleep.”  
       
     
    http://www.whitehousecorrespondentsweekendinsider.com/2009/04/30/the-gibbsnotist/  
     
    And Gibbs thinks he’s justified to call Palin out for her palm crib notes? As if a Presidential Press Secretary boring reporters to sleep has any call to make fun of others and how they handle the press.  Say what you will about Palin, I bet reporters aren’t falling asleep when she’s answering questions so for that reason alone, she outshines Gibbs by a mile.   
     
    Gibbs is a smarmy jerk and the Obama Admistration deserves him.

  • Clara

    Gibbs elicits a rush of bile in my throat.  He’s everything that he’s been called here, and worse.  He cannot speak a sentence without many ‘uh, uh, uhs”  He’s taken a page from his idol, The One.  Everyone in the inner sanctum stammers and stutters!  Gibbs is  worse than a snotty nosed kid; he’s an Eddie Haskell.  If he’s canned, he’ll only write a best seller about his campaign and first year but I’d love to see him sent packing back to Alabama.

  • barry bums a ciggie

    scaaaaared of her!

  • amirosa

    I think that regardless of who is press secretary, the result is the same as long as we have an empty head, empty suit in charge of the White House, so Gibbs in or out matters zero as long as Obama is in.

  • John Byrnes

    Last Tuesday, Directors of the CIA, FBI and National Intelligence declared that an attack by Al Qaeda in the next 3 to 6 months “is certain!” Leon Panetta, CIA Director announced, “The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11.  It is that Al Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect.”
     
    Panetta’s statement does not take into account the ability to identify any terrorist whose goal it is to give up their life for a cause.  Only when you are observing measurable emerging aggression can you identify a terrorist before they effect their violence.
     
    The Center for Aggression Management discovered 15 years ago that there were two kinds of aggression: adrenaline-driven Primal Aggression and intent-driven Cognitive Aggression.  The Primal Aggressor, in the extreme, is “red-faced and ready to explode,” the Cognitive Aggressor (the terrorist) is not.  When a person, regardless of the culture, gender, education or position, rises to the level where their goal is to give up their life for a cause, their body looses animation and we see the “thousand-yard stare.” But it is more than this, the whole body and behavior looses animation and this is how we can identify them.  The problem is that security and law enforcement are still looking for the Primal Aggressor (red-faced and ready to explode). Of course they are finding it difficult to detect these terrorist; a terrorist is a Cognitive Aggression; they are looking for the wrong person!
     
    As our Government analyzes what went wrong regarding Abdulmatallab’s entrance into the United States, you can be assured that Al Qaeda is also analyzing how their plans went wrong.  Who do you think will figure it out first . . . ?
     
    You can read more at http://blog.AggressionManagement.com