In “The Limits Of Cool”, Paul Mirengoff of Power Line writes:
Byron York notes that some Obama defenders are circulating articles from the Huffington Post and Politico arguing that President Obama is being subjected to a double standard of criticism for his handling of the Detroit terrorism incident. This claim is based on the fact that, as Politico’s Josh Gerstein notes, when shoe-bomber Richard Reid struck on December 22, 2001, “it was six days before President George W. Bush, then on vacation, made any public remarks…and there were virtually no complaints from the press or any opposition Democrats that his response was sluggish or inadequate.” Yet despite what Gerstein calls striking similarities between the Reid case and the Detroit incident, Obama has become the target of “withering” criticism from Republicans and some in the press.
In addition to Dick Cheney, the attacks on Obama are coming from that infamous neocon cabal at the New York Daily News and the archconservative Maureen Dowd, who, after fantasizing of Obama as Spock earlier this year (one of a number of Obama-related fantasies amongst the distaff staff of the Gray Lady this year), appears to finally be tiring of the act:
Before he left for vacation, Obama tried to shed his Spock mien and juice up the empathy quotient on jobs. But in his usual inspiring/listless cycle, he once more appeared chilly in his response to the chilling episode on Flight 253, issuing bulletins through his press secretary and hitting the links. At least you have to seem concerned. On Tuesday, Obama stepped up to the microphone to admit what Janet Napolitano (who learned nothing from an earlier Janet named Reno) had first tried to deny: that there had been “a systemic failure” and a “catastrophic breach of security.” But in a mystifying moment that was not technically or emotionally reassuring, there was no live video and it looked as though the Obama operation was flying by the seat of its pants.
Gosh, ya think, Mo?
Of course, as Bill Whittle noted earlier this year at PJTV, there’s a reason why it was nice to have Spock manning the sensors, but whenever Kirk tossed him the keys to the Enterprise or its shuttlecraft, the result was invariably close to a Vulcan-caused disaster.
Update: “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views . . .”
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