Grab and Keel

Is everyone else watching this media ping-pong?

We find out that:

“Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been briefed on the incident aboard Northwest Airlines flight #253 and is closely monitoring the situation.

We learn that Mr. Abdulmutallab may have boarded without a Passport? The flight originated in Amsterdam. Hello!?

We learn the system is “working”? However, Secretary Janet Napolitano sure is glad those passengers were on board and: Thanks!

By the way, she says, expect boarding delays and new screening.

To prove how competent everyone is they haul another Nigerian man with diarrhea off the same plane the very next day.( All right, two days later!)

In the mean time Congressman Peter King says he doesn’t like Napolitano’s “tone”. Does that mean she’s failed as woman? Or she didn’t have a man’s “tone”? WTF? No one questions whether the 48 hour wait was purposeful for the Prez. King displayed a great example of how to ask the wrong questions and look like a real sexist idiot.

We learn that, yes, SHS Napolitano, said something inane yesterday but gee, we only have forty screeners to prevent this kind of thing in the entire country. It’s the Republicans fault. I’m not sure why that matters, since the flight DIDN’T ORIGINATE IN THIS COUNTRY.

Mike Littwin at the Denver Post reminds us that WE are the front line on “War on Terror.” I like that sentimental reference to a Bushian statement. (Terrorism, not Terror.)

We then learn that it is the weak minded Liberals who caused this incident.

Jake Tapper had some ideas about who can claim success in a foiled bomb attack.

(Hint. It’s us; we decided to stop being sheep to 1960’s passenger protocol.)

Speaking of protocol, we learn from Carol Lee over at Politico that we are observing presidential protocol in action as to how unexpected problems are handled. I don’t know why this is news. Obama showed us how he managed problems the night of the McCain/Obama debate. He’s pretty cool all right; He lets the other chickens run around.

Then we find out that some Yemeni jihadists are claiming this schnook’s actions are a result of our bombing them. However, Obama calls them out, cuz doncha know, this guy left Yemen BEFORE the bombing occurred. This of course means we knew he was coming, we just didn’t know what for. Never mind that the Yemeni air strike was on the 17^th, and Abdulmutallab didn’t show up in our flight zone until the 25^th.  I guess Yemen is in some sort of bubble, and once you leave there you lose all contact with everyone. However, since we have already pretty much committed to cleaning up terrorists everywhere, for the foreseeable future, I imagine this kind of incentive doesn’t hurt.

President Obama gets HIS tone in gear and says: “His Administration ‘Will Not Rest’ After Attempted Terror Attack”.

Then we find out that just maybe, but we aren’t sure, there is a Guantanamo link. Is it real or is it incentive? Hmm.  Hey, I’ll tell you what, the Prez is ON IT!

He’s gonna get those plane bomb plotters. Not only that, US terrorism databases and air travel screening are gonna get checked.

While we are pondering this, over at the Secretary of State’s office Mr. Ian Kelly is telling the press that they did everything right. Yes, they could have pulled Mr. Abdulmutallab’s visa, but in June when they issued it, there was no reason to. They put the father’s concerns into the database, but it wasn’t their job to kick the Undie Bomber off the plane. He was flagged on November 20th. It was someone else’s job to watch him, (National Counterterrorism Center) and no, Nigeria has said they have nothing to do with this.

Then we find out that systemic failures are the Republican’s entire fault, and especially DeMints! (Or maybe the Unions!?)

Today, we get the official grand update from the Prez. Yep, it’s systemic failure all right, it was there before he was Prez, (So sure as shootin’ it’s the Republican’s fault.) and we are ON IT!

In the mean time we get to ponder to possible mind meanderings of another lost soul and his possible relationship to Stockholm syndrome, a life confined by the strictures of expectation, perfectionism and naivety. He was on the Internet telling the world that he was lonely. He was 23, trying not to have sex and rebelling against his parents’ meat choices. He essentially runs away from the Dubai school his father wanted him to attend and winds up on a plane to it’s sister city with a bomb. Why go on that plane?

Great balls of fire! The symbolism just reeks.

Assuming anyone else in Yemen really planned this, as opposed to just sending a schnook to his probable death, I’m wondering why he or she picked a Detroit flight. With 44,000 empty homes and a still floundering economy, it seems an odd choice to make a show.

It’s the reality. There are schnooks everywhere. 300 or more could have died. And didn’t.

Thank you, crew, passengers, and especially, Jasper Shuringa!

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