Marathon Pundit: Add Detroit security failure to problems facing Democrats

Monday, December 28, 2009

Add Detroit security failure to problems facing Democrats

I can't remember where I read it--the Wall Street Journal perhaps--but this was the most cogent analysis of the 2004 presidential election, and it went something like this: "Voter chose George W. Bush because he would shoot first and ask questions later. John Kerry intimated that he would do the opposite."

So in 2010, the Democrats may have to face safety as an issue, in addition to their unpopular stances on ObamaCare, cap and trade, and their failed economic stimulus stimulus.

From the New York Times:

When a prominent Nigerian banker and former government official phoned the American Embassy in Abuja in October with a warning that his son had developed radical views, had disappeared and might have traveled to Yemen, embassy officials did not revoke the young man's visa to enter the United States, which was good until June 2010.

Instead, officials said Sunday, they marked the file of the son, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, for a full investigation should he ever reapply for a visa. And when they passed the information on to Washington, Mr. Abdulmutallab's name was added to 550,000 others with some alleged terrorist connections — but not to the no-fly list. That meant no flags were raised when he used cash to buy a ticket to the United States and boarded a plane, checking no bags.

Now that Mr. Abdulmutallab is charged with trying to blow up a transcontinental airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day, some members of Congress are urgently questioning why, eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks, security measures still cannot keep makeshift bombs off airliners.

On Sunday, as criticism mounted that security lapses had led to a brush with disaster, President Obama ordered a review of the two major planks of the aviation security system — the creation of watch lists and the use of detection equipment at airport checkpoints.