In a totally predictable, by now, reaction, Think Progress, which blows the whistle to which left-wing blogs react, immediately launched an attack on the first Republican to speak up about the incident, in this case, Congressman Pete Hoestra:
Hoekstra Quickly Politicizes Attempted Terrorist Attack, Suggests Obama’s Clueless On National SecurityHere is the fuller context of the Hoeksta comment, with the words edited out of the Think Progress post placed in bold by me:
Steve Benen, citing the Think Progress post, was even more blunt: PETE HOEKSTRA, SHAMELESS BUFFOON.... Alan Colmes also picked up on the Think Progress post to quip: "Pretty anxious to score political points, aren’t we?"The ranking Republican on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee says today's suspected terrorist incident at Detroit Metro Airport could provide further evidence of a Yemen-based branch of al-Qaida intent on an attack on American soil and believes the Obama administration needs to take more aggressive action to combat the threat.
“It’s not surprising,” U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Holland Republican, said of the alleged terrorist attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight in Detroit.
A Nigerian who authorities said had told them he was ordered by al-Qaida to detonate an explosive was in custody. Reports linked the explosives to Yemen. “People have got to start connecting the dots here and maybe this is the thing that will connect the dots for the Obama administration,” said Hoekstra.
The fear that conservatives would point out the obvious about this terrorist attack seemed to be a common first reaction:
"[The attack] means Greater Wingnuttia is going to get the very special happy Christmas they most desire, because what they like best of all is to wet their pants in an ecstasy of hysterical screeching .... "John Cole of Balloon-Juice immediately lined up his preemptive attack:
I’m not going to speculate about what happened because the reports are all over the place, and I do not want to minimize the seriousness of it, but I will state that I think we all know the kind of media freak-out we are about to have over this event.How was it an attempt to "politicize" terrorism for Hoeksta to point out the obvious? Al-Qaeda activities in Yemen are a problem, and this incident may prove that those activities have the ability to reach our shores as in the Fort Hood shooting.
To sum up, let me see if I have this right. Think Progress and its progeny attempt to score political points by claiming that Pete Hoekstra was attempting to score political points, and Hoekstra is the buffoon?
Must we all remain silent about every terrorist incident and attack for fear of being accused of attempting to "politicize" the issue.
Perhaps if more people had spoken up during the Clinton years against the policy of creating walls between intelligence services and law enforcement, and treating terrorism as a mere law enforcement problem, we could have prevented the 9/11 attacks.
Uh oh, did I just attempt to score political points? And if I did, does that make me wrong?
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Related Posts:
About That "Firecracker"
Not So Scary Terror?
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What is a "Holland" Republican? Did they mean to say "Dutch"? Are they implying that he is a tool for Holland? Fearing that readers might miss the Dutch-Holland connection if they used "Dutch", did they also fear that they would miss the subliminal implication?
ReplyDeleteMaybe they should have called him a Netherlander as well, pasa, just to cover all possible bases. What a mob of knee jerking pacifists the left side of the internet is.
ReplyDeleteFree Repubic is reporting the terrorist's father became concerned about his son's increasingly extremist views and turned him in to the U.S. embassy authorities in Nigeria six months ago. The father was surprised his son was not on a no fly list.
ReplyDeleteSo using the Left's pretzel logic, when this becomes widely reported and someone points to how the Obama administration's incompetency allowed the terrorist to board the plane, they will be doing so primarily for political gain rather than identifying a hole in security that needs to be fixed?
The thing that gets the Lib Media's panties in a bunch is the fact that for the duration of Bush's post-9/11 Presidency, there were no further 'successful' terrorist attempts on American soil.
ReplyDeleteNow, after 7 years of relative safety, we've had how many during Obama's first year of 'service'? It's a testament against those who have wanted to play down the need for increased vigilance -- whether it's about surveillance, screening, profiling, or expense.
That's why the intense need to 'scrub' words like 'Muslim', 'terrorist', or the names and allegiances of the attackers from news reports.
The Liberal mind is not able to reconcile the disparity between the control-everything socialist mentatility and the ignore-everything 'politically correct' mentality -- any more than a logical mind can.
To challenge them on this hypocracy can only be met with ridicule; because there is no rational justification for it.
They call Pete Hoekstra a "Holland Republican" because his home district is Holland, Michigan...
ReplyDeleteDANIEL. Thanks for the clarity. As Bill Simmons would say, these are his readers.
ReplyDeleteAlso. to compare this to the 9-11 plot, with layers of complicity and months or preparation, is just plain silly.
The thing that gets the Lib Media's panties in a bunch is the fact that for the duration of Bush's post-9/11 Presidency, there were no further 'successful' terrorist attempts on American soil.
ReplyDeleteNow, after 7 years of relative safety, we've had how many during Obama's first year of 'service'?
Uh...zero.
Also, I continue to be amazed that people forget about the anthrax attacks that followed 9/11. Or the DC sniper.
So far, in comparing their first years, Obama's lost about 3,000 fewer Americans to terrorism than Bush did. So I'd say the advantage goes to Obama.
Pete Hoekstra's comments DO seem political in nature.
ReplyDeleteThink it through, use your brains.....
Nothing has changed regarding our presence in Yemen. We've been there for a decade now randomly bombing and disrupting their lives. Obama has continued this military presence, neither escalating it nor scaling it back. And Hoekstra KNOWS we remain militarily and clandestinely active in Yemen, he sits on the committe that authorizes that effort.
(Y'all need to read Chris Floyd once in a while)
So, what IS the point of Hoekstra's comment then, if not to gain political cannon fodder, once you understand that he KNOWS we're active in Yemen?
Honest criticism would not focus on Yemen, it would focus on the breakdown between the no-fly lists and the security at the airport in Amsterdam.
I would speculate that they find a sympathetic screener at the airport in Amsterdam who may have been in on the plot. Cripes, this chickenshit thug had explosives tied to his damn leg! How do you NOT find that?
"Perhaps if more people had spoken up during the Clinton years against the policy of creating walls between intelligence services and law enforcement, and treating terrorism as a mere law enforcement problem, we could have prevented the 9/11 attacks."
ReplyDeleteWhy do conservatives so frequently forget the 9/11 attacks happened on Bush's watch? They were nine months in to the Bush Administration. They are the ones who have egg on their face, not the Clinton folks, who had been out of office for nine months when the attacks occurred.
Why do conservatives so frequently forget about the anthrax attacks that occurred *after* 9/11, that were quickly and loudly classified by the Bush Administration as terrorism?
Why do conservatives so frequently forget about the the Beltway sniper attacks? Muhammad & Malvo were deemed as terrorists when caught. And this was more than a year after 9/11 and the perp's name was Muhammad!
"Kept us safe for 8 years." yeah, if you don't know how to use a calendar.
Tim, Tim, Tim....didn't you hear what Mary Matalin said? All that unpleasantness was INHERITED from the Clinton administration. You can check it out in the Revised History Wiki of Wingnuttia.
ReplyDelete