Barack Obama appeared on MSNBC's Hardball last night and was asked about the way he would handle the 3 a.m. phone call.
The transcript:
MATTHEWS: Let me give you a scene that may face you in the next year or two, where the national security adviser calls you at 3:00 in the morning and tells that you a couple of jet -- commercial jets have been hijacked. And they believe it is al Qaeda. And, as we know, al Qaeda always tries a second time. They tried for the World Trade Center after '93. They came back in '01.They're heading for the Capitol. What do you do?
OBAMA: Well, look, I am hesitant to engage in hypotheticals like that, because...
MATTHEWS: But it has been predictable.
OBAMA: Oh, well, the--I don't think anybody predicted 9/11. And, so, we don't know what kinds of circumstances are going to come up.
Yup. That's right, Barack Obama glibly stated that he didn't "think anybody predicted 9/11."
Some thoughts:
1. Maybe Obama needs a tutorial from former Vice Chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Lee Hamilton, who just endorsed him yesterday. Heck, even Hamilton knows and has to acknowledge that 9/11 was predictable.
Not that Obama conferring with Hamilton should give any of us warm, fuzzy feelings since Lee Hamilton is largely responsible for the 9/11 Commission's Final Report being a total whitewash.
To put it mildly, as Vice Chair for the 9/11 Commission, Hamilton was not interested in transparency, he was not interested in accountability, and he was certainly not interested in telling the truth to the American public. So why is a guy like Hamilton so interested in Obama being president?
Take further Hamilton's words of endorsement for Obama where Hamilton said, "Obama will strengthen our ability to use all the tools of American power, and relentlessly promote the American values of freedom and justice for all people. (Remember those words, folks, "power" and "relentlessly promote" and recognize that they have nothing to do with the sort of foreign policy Obama is currently trying to sell to the American public.)
2. Perhaps Obama might better strengthen his image of having a handle on national security issues by not sounding so much like the disgraceful, incompetent former Bush Administration National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
Recall that Ms. Rice stated that "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."
In other words, that before 9/11 nobody in our (entire) intelligence community could have predicted that something like 9/11 could happen. (i.e. the Bush administration's 9/11 talking point)
I am not even going to bother listing the hundreds of cites/articles/studies/reports/military exercises, drills/testimonials/PDB's/SEIB's or even television shows that disprove Rice's statement. I will just mention my personal favorite -- the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S."
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