Janet Incompetano

Mark Steyn and a brutal assessment of the performance of the TSA, Janet Incompetano and Barry Mason:

But by then the President of the United States had also taken to the airwaves. For three days, he had remained silent – which I believed is a world record for the 44th president. Since Jan. 20, 2009, it’s been difficult to switch on the TV and not find him yakking – accepting an award in Oslo for not being George W Bush, doing Special Olympics gags with Jay Leno, apologizing for America to some dictator or other… but across the electric wires an eerie still had descended. And when the president finally spoke, even making allowances for his usual detached cool, he sounded less like a commander-in-chief addressing the nation after an attempted attack than an assistant DA at a Cook County press conference announcing a drugs bust: “Here’s what we know so far… As the plane made its final approach to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, a passenger allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device… The suspect was immediately subdued… The suspect is now in custody and has been charged…”

Etc., etc., piling up one desiccated legalism on another: “Allegedly…”

“suspect…” “charged…” The president can’t tell an allegedly alleged suspect (which is what he is in Obama fantasy land) from an enemy combatant (which is what he is in cold, hard reality). But worse than the complacent cop-show jargonizing was a phrase it’s hard to read as anything other than a deliberate attempt to mislead the public: the president referred to the Knickerbomber as an “isolated extremist.” By this time, it was already clear that young Umar had been radicalized by jihadist networks in London and fast-tracked to training in Yemen by terror operatives who understood the potentially high value of a westernized Muslim with excellent English from a respectable family. Yet President Obama tried to pass him off as some sort of lone misfit who wakes up one morning and goes bananas. Could happen to anyone.

He plays a lawyer on TV, don’t you see? Steyn must have written this column before the TSA began serving subpoenas on bloggers – US based bloggers. Never mind the Yemeni-trained terrorists and their free access to Detroit-bound flights. That’s hard. Bloggers are real easy. They can’t lawyer up since they get paid little or nothing.

The terrorists get free lawyers. America just becomes a  laughingstock because of the antics of Janet Incompetano and Barry Mason.