Brennan Claims War on Terror Politicized

As Deputy Homeland Security adviser on counter terrorism goes about claiming that Republican lawmakers are "politicizing" the handling of terrorists as they are captured and brought to justice, one word flashes in my mind: swarmy. John Brennan is swarmy. It would appear that Brennan is the designated water carrier on this issue and is the flack sent out to the chat shows to diffuse the criticism of this administration's bungling of processing Christmas Day bomber Abdulmutallab.

For a man who has bragged about being active in the last five administrations, you would think he would have a better grasp of working with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Instead, he just sounds nasty and seems to have fallen into the Obama administration's favorite riff - just blame the Republicans when things go wrong and the Democrats in charge are called out on it. Here's an op-ed written by Brennan and published in USA Today:

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/02/opposing-view-we-need-no-lectures.html?csp=34

Brennan perpetuates the lie in the Mirandizing of Richard Reeves, the shoe bomber. He, along with the Obama flacks, claim that Mirandizing Abdulmutallab is no different than how Reeves was treated by the Bush administration One problem with that re-write of history: no one criticized that because the military court process was not in place yet, given that the incident with Reeves was only three months after 9/11/01. Plus, the reason top GOP leaders are angry with the lies being perpetuated by this administration now that their complete incompetence has been shown, is that the Obama administration claimed that the new "High-Value Interrogation Group" put into place recently by the FBI would not automatically Mirandize terror suspects. They claimed they would use a case by case basis to form that decision. Was that just a part of the lie machine, too?

So, while Brennan is now claiming that when he briefed top GOP lawmakers on the decision to retain Abdumutallab in FBI custody instead of military police custody that none of them asked questions, the GOP lawmakers assumed that the previous stated policy of this administration would stand - that it was to be assumed Abdumutallab would not be Mirandized without specifically telling lawmakers of that decision.

The Obama administration knows how badly this has been treated. They have even broken the patience of the two more liberal Republican Senators from Maine, Senators Collins and Snowe, who frequently afford the Obama administration some bipartisan cover on votes. Both have been aghast at the facts as they unfold - or don't - in hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Collins is ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee. Collins, in fact, was the one called upon to do the Republican response to the President's weekly address. She left no doubt that she is disgusted.

Collins was particularly angry when she heard the testimony of Dennis Blair, director of national intelligence. He stated the decision to Mirandize Abdulmutallab was a "mistake".

Now the administration is in full CYA mode. Press Secretary Gibbs has even gone to the trouble to refute conclusions made by these hearings. Collins and Snowe have not backed down. That has sent shock waves to the Team Obama. As Collins said in her weekly address response: "The Obama administration appears to have a blind spot when it comes to the war on terrorism." Ouch.

So, to the likes of swarmy Team Obama members the question is: Who, exactly is it that is "politicizing " the war on terror?