NewsBusters is upset over the fact that Janet Napolitano seemingly referred to Haley Barbour as the Governor of Alabama, when in fact he is the Governor of Mississippi.
Speaking as one who has never liked Napolitano, and who has repeatedly called for her to be fired, I have to say that this does not seem to be a horrifying gaffe like they’re making it out to be.
One day, commentators are going to have to learn: People misspeak. It happens.
Yet more mistakes by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. She’s admitted to not reading the Arizona immigration bill, but nevertheless has gone ahead and criticized it. She also cut funding for security for New York’s mass-transit system and then lied about it.
Napolitano has never struck me as an especially competent individual. I strongly feel that she botched the response to the Christmas day attempted bombing–though it was largely merely a PR failure on her part, it suggests a rather high degree of incompetence, and if it were not for extremely good fortune on that day, the consequences of DHS stupidity could have been much more severe.
More than anything–and maybe we can chalk this up to anti-charisma–Napolitano has displayed a rather stunning level of tone-deafness. I’ll tell you up front: I haven’t read the Arizona immigration bill either; but I still am more than qualified to pass judgment on it. But Napolitano was easily lured into saying something that made her sound less confident and more like a clueless hack–and by John McCain, no less!
Here’s what I’d have said:
“I am familiar with the law to the extent that I recognize the potential exists for it to be abused for the purpose of infringing upon the rights of citizens.”
Napolitano’s anti-charisma exacerbates all of her mistakes, of course, but it’s getting harder and harder to see what actual skills she possesses that make her worth the PR headaches she creates.
“‘We’re taking this very seriously,’ [Homeland Security Secretary Janet] Napolitano told CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ program. ‘We’re treating it as if it could be a potential terrorist attack.'”
Gee, you think?
Update: The title of this post is the original headline from the Reuters column I linked to. I see they’ve changed it since then.
…is what the Republicans say the Democrats are.
First of all, why is this news? The Republicans always say that. Second, while his policies seem to be weaker, Obama’s track record against Jihadism compares favorably with George W. Bush’s and Bill Clinton’s after their respective first years in office.
I’ll agree his position on torture seems naive, and his foolish decision not to fire Napolitano immediately after the December 25th failed attack ought to be ridiculed. But these apparent flaws cannot negate his success in objective terms. The arguments against trying terrorists in civilian court are, in my opinion, fairly weak.
As of this moment, the case against Obama himself as weak on terror is basically a joke. Now, the case against the Democrats in Congress, particularly Harry Reid, is a much better one. Reid is a weak person by nature, and his infamous assertion that the Iraq war was “lost” is one that should haunt him.
The Democrats overall philosophy intuitively seems to be weaker, but that is not backed up by the data.
