THE DAILY BLADE: Is Napolitano Flat-Footed Or Sure-Footed? Depends On Whom You Ask.
It’s amazing how conservatives and liberals can look at the same fact pattern and come to diametrically opposed conclusions. Here’s conservative syndicated columnist Debra Saunders on Homeland Security’s early response to the failed Times Square bombing:
On the Sunday talk-show circuit, [Homeland Security Secretary] Napolitano voiced her belief that the Times Square dud was a "one-off" event - which some conservatives interpreted as Napolitano once again dismissing the incident as the work of a "lone wolf."
Au contraire, a Homeland Security official assured Foreign Policy magazine's The Cable blog, Napolitano was "referencing that at that time, there was no evidence to suggest that there were other trucks parked with explosives in other parts of New York or other cities across the country. Law enforcement expects that kind of threat assessment from us."
But how could she know that there were no other attacks planned the day before authorities pulled Shahzad off a Dubai-bound plane?
And here’s the reax of New York Observer columnist Joe Conason, a liberal:
Within hours after the car bomb fizzled in Times Square, the nonstop noise resumed on Fox News and talk radio, warning that the Barack Obama administration is failing to protect us. Evidently, the president and his aides don't say "terror" and "terrorism" sufficiently often to make it go away, according to the professional noisemakers. …
It is not surprising that the right-wing media are preoccupied with ideological clowning and cheap partisanship, even at a moment when hundreds of Americans just barely escaped peril. This vapid entertainment was captured perfectly in a Fox News video segment (which can be viewed on the Media Matters for America Website). At the very moment Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson groused that government officials "refuse to say the word 'terror,'" the electronic scroll directly beneath her image reported that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano had indeed referred to the car bomb as "a potential terrorist attack."
But there is one point on which Saunders and Conason appear to agree: Napolitano is useless.
Saunders: It is impossible to take her seriously.
Conason: The first line of defense is an alert citizenry … The next is a highly trained police force that can respond instantly and effectively.
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