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Obama seen weathering fallout from failed plane attack

2010-01-09T02:28:00.000-08:00

Obama spent his first two days back in Washington after his Hawaiian vacation looking at how U.S. intelligence agencies failed to connect the dots and prevent the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.
"It's an immediate distraction. It has got to be dealt with instantly, but I don't think it is something that need be lingering," said presidential scholar Stephen Hess who served in the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations.
The White House has dismissed suggestions that the political fallout from the failed bomb plot has overloaded Obama's already full plate, which is groaning under the weight of crises ranging from a record budget deficit and high unemployment to a stand-off with Iran.
"When you're the president of the United States, you've got to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time," declared deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton.
Underscoring that daily juggling act, Obama held talks with congressional leaders on Tuesday to discuss the healthcare overhaul bill after meeting his spy chiefs and rebuking them for the Christmas Day "screw-up."
Despite Republican attempts to paint Obama, a Democrat, as weak on security for waiting three days before making a public statement on the attack, analysts said he appeared to be weathering the controversy thus far.
He acted swiftly to order a review of how information is shared between the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies and how the no-fly lists that stop people boarding planes are drawn up.
"People have moved on. The attack was thwarted, no one was hurt, the individual was arrested," said Darrell West, director of governance studies at Brookings Institution in Washington.
AMERICANS FEAR NEW 2010 ATTACK
Opinion polls consistently show the number one priority for most Americans is still the fragile state of the economy. Obama has repeatedly said his top job in 2010 will be to put Americans back to work after the worst recession in decades.
The president's fellow Democrats, who control both houses of the U.S. Congress, face tough mid-term elections in November, when Republicans will focus on the high unemployment rate and exploit voters' uncertainty about the high cost of Obama's plans to revamp the $2.5 trillion healthcare system.
So, expect to see Obama hitting the road in the next few weeks to sell his ambitious healthcare reforms and his plans for spurring job growth.
But analysts say the president, who receives a daily intelligence briefing on threats to the United States, is also going to have to be more visible on national security issues.
A poll conducted by Rasmussen after the Christmas Day attack found 79 percent of U.S. voters think there will be another terrorist attack in the United States this year.
"He is going to have to talk more about national security to reassure people he is on top of the problem. There very well could be future attacks and he has to inoculate himself from potential risks in that area," said Brookings' West.
"Had the (Christmas Day) attack been successful or if there is a new attack in the future, then the whole political terrain shifts enormously and that is the risk he faces," West said.
Peter Feaver, a former director at the National Security Council, said the administration is acutely aware of this.
"The White House is as concerned about making sure they are prepared for the next attack as they are dealing with what went wrong in the last attack," said Feaver, now a political scientist at Duke University in North Carolina.
WAKE UP CALL
"If you don't wake up after a wake up call then you're in much, much more political peril. I'm not saying they haven't woken up, I'm saying they will pay attention to this."
National security loomed large on Obama's agenda in his first year in office as he weighed sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan. But in seeking to make a sharp break from the Bush administration, the "war on terror" disappeared from the government lexicon.
"They've been low-balling it. They're consciously rejecting the more hyperbolic approach the Bush administration had," said James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "They're doing a good job (on national security), but they need to be more vocal about it.
"The Democrats have upcoming elections and a spate of unpopular issues that could put them at a disadvantage. If they aren't seen as responding effectively to terrorism, it will hurt them at the polls," he said.
Americans traditionally view Republicans as stronger on national security and are still uncertain about Obama as their commander in chief.
Therein lies a potential problem for Obama. The more he talks about national security to counter that perception, the less room he has to talk about health care and jobs.

So, the question is not whether Obama can chew gum and walk at the same time but whether he can also keep those spinning plates he is juggling from crashing to the ground.

Matt Frei's diary: Obama visits America's banker

2010-01-01T03:22:00.000-08:00

it should not come as a surprise that President Obama has been dancing delicately and deftly around the issues of Tibet and human rights while on his visit to China.Who after all would kick sand in their banker's face? China now holds reserves of $2.3 trillion. It owns more US debt than anyone else.
China's savings sustain the US economy for better or worse. It is the financial equivalent of assured mutual destruction.
The Chinese underwrite America's lavish lifestyle. Their family silver is kept in dollars. One can not live without the other. But you can see why Barack Obama has been at pains to be a most courteous guest.
Before the trip, he obliged his hosts by not seeing the Dalai Lama when the Tibetan spiritual leader was visiting Washington. The word Taiwan has not even been whispered.
Human rights are down the menu of public grievances. Obama even chimed in with President Hu Jintao by refusing to take even a single question from the press at a "news conference" in Beijing.
Perhaps he was trying to avoid the inevitable grilling over Afghanistan or health care that follows him around the globe like a stubborn shadow.
I can see his annoyance. But I remember how previous presidents fielded difficult questions from abrasive reporters - and answered back with relish - while standing next to Chinese leaders.

The ability of the regime to behave less like a nanny with a truncheon could determine the future of the world's most populous nation.

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Freedom of the press is, after all, one of the few things that the US still has over the people who make their washing machines, assemble their computers, sell them their toys and lend them their mortgage money.
I can also see why the Chinese hate being lectured by America on human rights.
The lingering existence of Guantanamo Bay and memories of Abu Ghraib have eroded the moral high ground like a swarm of termites, however insistently Obama has banned the use of torture.

Obama lauds CIA after bomb strike

2009-12-31T23:02:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama rallies the CIA after seven staff were killed by an Afghan bomber - one of the worst attacks in its history.

the US president's condolence message praised the work of those killed. The dead include the head of the CIA's base in Khost Province, near the border with Pakistan, the Associated Press news agency reports.
The Taliban said one of their members wearing an explosive vest and an army uniform had carried out the attack.
It was the worst against US intelligence officials since the American embassy in Beirut was bombed in 1983.
A total of 90 CIA employees have been honoured for their deaths in the agency's service since its inception in 1947, according to the Washington Post newspaper.

Nigeria police in deadly clash with sect in Bauchi

2009-12-29T03:40:00.000-08:00

At least 38 people have died in clashes between security forces and members of a religious sect in the northern Nigerian state of Bauchi.

The dead were mainly from a group calling itself Kala Kato. Two soldiers and a policeman were also killed.

The fighting came after local people told authorities they were alarmed by open-air preaching by sect members.

Such preaching was banned in the state after an uprising by another sect, Boko Haram, earlier this year.

Hundreds of people were killed in the subsequent fighting across northern Nigeria.

The BBC's Caroline Duffield reports from Lagos that Kala Kato is a non-conformist Muslim sect made up of poor tradesmen, labourers and other working people.

Some residents in Zango, just south of the city of Bauchi, have said that in recent days the mood of their preaching had become aggressive.

The violence there began on Sunday morning. After some initial shooting the security forces retreated, before returning in greater numbers.

Members of the group had armed themselves with machetes and cutlasses, and appeared ready to fight armed police and soldiers, she adds.

A spokesman for the Bauchi state governor said the local military had been deployed, though other accounts spoke of a feared police unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad.

The Associated Press news agency cited Bauchi state official Mohammed Maigari as saying sect members had gone on the rampage to demand the release of their leader.

The sect leader had been arrested in connection with the killings of several Boko Haram members, AP reported.