BRENNAN: It’s disappointing to me that either the vice president or others have willfully mischaracterized President Obama’s position and actions or they’re just ignorant of the facts.
He's being gentlemanly here but there are only two choices; Either Cheney is Ignorant (and thereby irresponsible to speak without the facts) or A LIAR (Willful Mischaracterizer!)
Brennan via Thinkprogress.
BRENNAN: It’s disappointing to me that either the vice president or others have willfully mischaracterized President Obama’s position and actions or they’re just ignorant of the facts. I think in either case, it doesn’t speak well to sort of the reasons why they sort of went out and said these things. I came back into government for the express purpose of making sure that we can make this country safer than its ever been in the past. I have worked with the president over the past 12 months now and he is as determined as anybody I’ve worked with. I’m neither Republican nor Democrat. I’ve worked with the previous five administrations and this president is determined. And I think he has demonstrated in his language. He says we’re at war with al Qaeda. Were going to destroy al Qaeda the organization and we’re going to demonstrate through our actions, whether it be in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and other places that al Qaeda might be able to run, but they’re not going to be able to hide.
More Brennan from Meet The Press
MR. GREGORY: Republicans have been very critical of this president and accuse him of returning to a pre-9/11 mentality, of becoming lax in the face of terror, of essentially letting America's guard down. Former Vice President Dick Cheney said this to Politico this past week. Let me put his comment up on the screen. "As I've watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won't be at war. ... He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of September 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won't be at war. He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al-Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won't be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, `war on terror,' we won't be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren't, it makes us less safe." How do you respond to that?
MR. BRENNAN: I'm very disappointed in the vice president's comments. I'm neither Republican nor Democrat. I've worked for the past five administrations. And either the vice president is willfully mischaracterizing this president's position, both in terms of the language he uses and the actions he taken--he's taken, or he's ignorant of the facts. And in either case, it doesn't speak well of what the vice president's doing. The clear evidence is that this president has been very, very strong. In his inaugural address, he said, "We're at war with this international network of terrorists." We continue to say that we're at war with al-Qaeda. We're trying to give it some clarity. And we have taken the fight to them. We've continued, in fact, many of the, of the activities of the previous administration. I would not have come back into this government if I felt that this president was not committed to prosecuting this war against al-Qaeda. And every day I see it in the president's face, I see it in the actions he's taken, and so I'm confident that this country is, in fact, protected by this president's position on al-Qaeda and against terrorist activities. We're going to continue to do this, we're going to do it hard, we're going to do it constantly.
Watching the entire program Brennan slapped back hard at any suggestion that President Obama was in any way unserious about doing the rest thing and the best things to protect this nation from future attacks and to seek justice against those who perpetrate such attacks.
The Yemeni/Al Qeada strongholds which are most likely to have spawned the Christmas Day Attack have already been bombed into dust with many of the leaders of that faction of AQ being killed and rendered "on the run" by Yemeni forces. Brennan spoke extensively about how the Administration has already been focusing heavily on Yemen and making great progress there.
This is how a professional behaves - this is non-partisanship - as contrasted by the horrible performance by the top politicos from the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees, who for the record happen to be Joe Lieberman (Senate-Chairman), Susan Collins (Senate-Ranking Members), Jane Harmon (House-Chair) and Pete Hoekstra (House-Ranking Member).
Let's start with Lieberman:
Sen. Joe Lieberman believes that Guantanamo Bay's bad reputation isn't deserved. "You could not find a better, more humane facility for a detention center in the world," Lieberman told ABC's Terry Moran Sunday.
Lieberman thinks it's a mistake to close the detention center. "The president is in charge of what happens there now so some of the abuses of the past are not going to happen [in the future]," said Lieberman.
So Lieberman thinks Gitmo is fine and dandy - and further during this program he stated that Christmas Bomber AdulMuttabu shouldn't be tried in court but instead as a Prisoner of War by a Military Commission so that he can be mined for Intelligence Resources without the protection of Miranda.
One problem with that, he wasn't captured on a "Battlefield" - he was captured on U.S. Soil on an American Airplane by U.S. Air Marshals, not the U.S. Military. He's being handled by the Department of Justice because that's who has custody of him - is Lieberman really suggesting that we should have U.S. Troops patrolling our Airports and Airplans?
Posse Commitatus Much?
Have none of these people ever paid attention to how the U.S. Justice System has been taking down organized crime for decades? They didn't "sweat it out of them" - very often they cut them deal for a lesser or reduced sentence in exchange for valuable verifiable information.
Why is it that the only thing these people seem to be able to conceive is some kind of Jack Bauer/24 Non-Justice - don't they ever watch programs like CSI where it's not the suspect or witnesses statements that count as much as the physical and trace evidence?
All of the Congress-Critters present seemed to think that the warning offered by Muttalab's father was more than credible and sufficient to have his already valid Visa revoked and his named moved to the No-Fly List - Even without anyone checking to see if this Claim was Correct!
A claim and an allegation is not "EVIDENCE*.
This ridiculous suggestion is how people like Cat Stevens (Yusef Islam), former Vice-President Al Gore and Nelson Mandela wound up on the Watch and No-Fly List. A panicked Chicken-Little response is more likely to alienate those who might want to come forward and help us, just as the likelihood that his son would wind up detained indefinitely without charges in a Black Site or GITMO would deter future father's and family members from coming forward with tips about their relatives extremist allegiances.
And then you had Hoekstra the Jokestra attempting to defend his attempts to use an attempted terrorist attacks as an opportunity to raise funds.
Hoeksta didn't back off one iota, and claims to be "fully substantiated" in his Security claims - yet Hoekstra, along with Rick (Man-on-Dog) Santorum - formerly claimed that we really *DID* find WMD's in Iraq!
I am so glad that the person making the decisions on these issues are people like Brennan and not grand-standing ass-clowns like Lieberman and Hoeksta.
Vyan
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