Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Ideology Trumps Competence in ObamaLand, UPDATED

Earlier we mentioned that Obama's executive inexperience will be harmful. It certainly shows in the Incompetence Level of his senior appointees: Holder and Napolitano.

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair told senators today that it was a mistake for authorities to give the accused bomber in the attempted Christmas Day attack on a U.S.-bound airliner a reading of his Miranda right to an attorney without consulting Blair's office, the Homeland Security secretary and other officials.

Blair noted that the administration has created a special team for interrogating high-value terrorism suspects and that it wasn’t used -- but should have been -- after the arrest of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of attempting to take down the Northwest Airlines flight traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit.

"That unit was created exactly for this purpose," Blair told the Senate Homeland Security Committee. “We did not invoke the HIG in this case. We should have. Frankly, we were thinking more of overseas people. And, duh ... the decision was made on the scene."

This is Policy/Procedure 101. The Administration's incoherence in this case is a result of our President paying attention ONLY to his ideological goals such as healthcare, and ignoring housekeeping details such as establishing and enforcing day-to-day procedures.

There's a lot more of this stuff coming.

HT: Just One Minute

UPDATE:

My remarks today before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs have been misconstrued. The FBI interrogated Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab when they took him into custody. They received important intelligence at that time, drawing on the FBI's expertise in interrogation that will be available in the HIG once it is fully operational. --Dennis Blair, Obama Appointee, DirectorIncompetentoPoohbah of National Intelligence

Update HT: AOSHQ

No comments: