The left, all the way up to the Obama administration, are calling BF (Bush’s Fault) on the terrorist attack — the systems in place “for years” were inadequate, Bush let out the guys who planned the bombing, blah, blah, blah.   Yep, the systems were inaqequate, because of so much push back against allowing the CIA to do their jobs.  And yep, Bush let out those effers because he was finally giving way to the heap of shit that had been piling on him since his 2004 reelection over the wars and terrorist “rights”.  He shouldn’t have done it, and many said so.

/rant mode

But instead of making lists of home-grown terrorists (like pro-lifers and veterans), Janet “the system worked” Napolitano should have been FIXING the systems if they were so broken.  Instead of Nancy “they lied to us” Pelosi saying the CIA never briefed her on waterboarding and demanding some on-paper-only program be investigated, she should have had her Homeland Security committee helping Napolitano.  And instead of Harry “the war is lost” Reid trying to punish Joe Lieberman because he supported McCain, he should have let him loose to work on a fix, too.  And instead of the whole of Congress working on taking over health care, killing us with carbon credits, and card check, etc, they should have been working one of the few things the Constitution actually charters them to do — provide for a common defense.

But, they don’t have to.  You see, even if Obama DOES screw up (as his administration clearly did here), he has the COA (Cover Obama’s Ass) left in full force.  They just call BF.   The Democratic Underground has a list of newspaper articles regarding Bush’s whereabouts during the Richard Reid attack back in 2001 (no link — bing it).  He was also on vacation.  And he didn’t make a statement for SIX whole days.  And.. and..  he was at Camp David to celebrate the holidays.  And.. and.. and.. there were accounts of all the minutia he and his family were doing to get ready for Christmas, including going to the gym.  AND THEN he went to that damn CRAWFORD!   And on top of that… ON TOP OF THAT… NO ONE on the right called for for Richard Reid to be treated as an “enemy combatant.”  AAAAAHHH!

Well, forgive us, O, glorious One!  Since Bush did it, you’re SOOO allowed some leeway.  You and yours spent almost his entire presidency criticizing his approach to the war on terror.  Then, you spend your first year doing NOTHING ABOUT IT. 

Yeah, all Bush’s fault.

/end rant mode

When the Richard Reid bomb plot happened, it was three months after 9/11.  People were on edge, waiting for another attack.  I don’t remember how I reacted to Bush’s six day lag in a personal response, but from what I read, I didn’t see anyone saying “the system worked” before Bush managed to make a statement.  Heck, even Joe Biden said these things might still happen, and we’re lucky Reid wasn’t successful.  It appeared as if it took a few days to even establish exactly who Richard Reid was (he traveled as Richard Reid, but many thought it was an alias for a few days).

Most of the fomenting about the response time now is coming from the blogs, talking heads, and opinion columns.  There weren’t very many blogs around back in 2001.  I did a quick search, and the only real commentary, blogwise, that I found was from Talking Points Memo.  And if you look at his archive, he was hardly focused on the Reid incident.  He even mentioned that the MSM was being PC and almost downplaying the heritage of Reid.  With the recent incident, we knew the guys real name and motive within 24 hours. 

But you have to admit, most of the outrage is well-placed.  We’ve known about this guy for months and he STILL had a visa to enter the US.  We were warned by his father — that alone should be enough to suspend it pending further investigation.  But no, the left says we can’t blame Obama because he hasn’t had time to fix the problems yet. 

Oh, wait, the left spent a lot of time blaming Bush, who was in office almost 8 months, for not following up on a piece of intel that said terrorists wanted to use planes as bombs (as Andrew Breitbart pointed out on Glenn Beck today).  Hmm.  But we can’t blame Obama, who’s been in office 11 months, for not following up on CIA and parental notifications on “The Nigerian.”  OK, not sure how that works…

I will say this, however.  I think too many people are making a mountain out of a mole hill over Obama’s location.  It’s not like he’s backpacking the Appalachian trail or anything.  His words mean a lot more than his location, and his words are what are failing him now.  We sound like a bunch of screechers when we complain about the little things instead of focusing on the big ones. 

But, as much as I like him, Karl Rove needs to back off a bit.  I saw a clip of him on either Hannity or O’Reilly, I can’t remember which one, Monday night where he complained about Obama waiting a “whole 72 hours” to make a statement.  Mr. Rove was in Bush’s administration during the Reid incident.  Why didn’t Bush come out before six days during the Reid incident?  Just sayin’.

Unbelievable.  So much for not wanting to live in the past.  The Obama administration released years of Bush administration documents regarding the war on terror. 

Attorney General Holder was quoted as saying, “Too often over the past decade, the fight against terrorism has been viewed as a zero-sum battle with our civil liberties.”  While this might be true, and some of the things revealed are scary, this premature release does nothing but fuel the anti-Bush fire only weeks after he left office.

This doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of my ire toward this action.  How dare the administration claim Bush’s fight against people willing to do anything to kill us as a “zero-sum battle with our civil liberties” on one hand then turn right around and back legislation such as card check, the fairness doctrine, increased rendition, and enslavement of the upper-middle and upper classes to confiscate wealth to fund their populist agenda. 

At least if Bush did violate civil liberties, he did it to protect Americans from being killed by fanatics; Obama’s administration is only trying to do it to crush dissent and retain power.

Update: Ace agrees, at least with my first rant.   Redstate also has links to the documents released.

Update II: Ed over at Hot Air gives his take on at least one of the scary possibilities the lawyers thought up to get around the Fourth Amendment.  He also points out, something many are NOT reporting, that these “loopholes” the lawyers thought up were never implemented by Bush.

Despite reporting during the Clinton years of the potential Freddie / Fannie bust, the New York Times spent 5000 words blaming the economic collapse ENTIRELY on the Bush administration.  The White House, understandably, was not too thrilled.

While Bush should have pressed harder for reform (he mentioned it yearly in the budget but didn’t really do anything about it), he is by no means the catalyst that deflated this economy.  Here’s the report from one of Brit Hume’s last “Special Report” broadcasts on FNC.

Later in the broadcast, Nina Easton from Fortune Magazine said, quite aptly, “You cannot write a story about affordable housing policies and blame it on George Bush instead of the Democrats!  I mean, it’s just, it’s outrageous!”

More from Michelle Malkin.

Bush has been keeping a secret.  No, he isn’t tapping our phones without warrants again.

He’s been secretly visiting families of soldiers who were killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by going off the grid and making appointments with families off his official record.  V.P. Cheney has been, too.  Bush has also made more trips to visit the wounded than had been thought.  He wanted these moments to be private and not have the press asking lots of questions of those he visited.  It’s reported he visited more than 500 families behind the scenes.  He told a journalist that he’s not just Commander in Chief but Comforter in Chief.  Laura says these visits took an emotional toll on the President.

I hope Obama continues the tradition; however, I’m afraid he won’t if he can’t have the press by his side.

I saw the video of President Bush ducking the two shoes thrown at him during his press conference in Iraq, and I wondered the same thing as a commenter over at Michelle Malkin’s site — where the hell was the Secret Service?  The guy was able to throw not one, but TWO, shoes at Bush without being deterred by Bush’s security force.  Unbelievable!  They didn’t even SEE the grenade thrown at Bush more than three years ago in Georgia.  I hope Obama’s team is better prepared.

Over at Michelle’s site, it turns out this “journalist” has a past that you should read about.  Also, Fox News reported earlier that the “journalist’s” television station called on the U.S. to release this guy to show their respect for free speech; otherwise, we’d be just like Saddam and the use of random killings to keep the public in line.  MmmmK.  Anyone who would have done that on U.S. soil would be in prison for a while, my friends (heh).

Update: Ace has more at his site.  Read the final paragraph.  Apparently, some of the other journalists stood up and apologized for the behavior of the shoe-thrower.  This fact was not reported in any of the articles I saw.  Guess it didn’t support the MSM’s narrative on Bush and Iraq.

Update II: The Washington Post has an article on the Secret Service’s response to the criticism.  They say their agents showed the proper amount of “agressiveness and restraint.” (H/T: Hot Air)

Some in the blogosphere and on the radio have been promoting VI day, or Victory in Iraq day, this Saturday, November 22.  The point is to celebrate how far we have come in the war in Iraq and how our tenacity will give the Iraqis a bright future.  And we also need to celebrate the troops who are the biggest reason we are able to celebrate where we are, the leaders who put in place the plan that changed the direction, and our Commander in Chief who might have made some poor decisions initially, but with his decision (against the advice of many of his own advisors) to implement the surge and turn it all around.

Catchy, no?   Deroy Murdock uses the imagery in his article, which makes a good case for what has gone wrong with the party and how we move forward.  I think his analysis of Bush and Rove is a little too harsh.  As I’ve written before, I think Bush’s singular mission after 9/11 was to keep America safe no matter the ransom cost required from Congress.

Oh, and if you don’t know what elephantiasis is, Google it.  But be warned that some graphic images might pop up.

Andrew Breitbart has an article thanking George W. Bush on this eve of the election that truly marks the end of his presidency.  I second the sentiments in his article.  I do really like President Bush.  I think he’s a humble man who has been on an almost eight-year mission of protecting the people who elected him (and the ones who didn’t) from more attacks on American soil.

While he has increased the federal budget a whole lot more than any Republican should, it’s all has to do with the war.  Wait, let me explain that.  Yes, I know that if you take out the war spending, he has still had one of the biggest budgets in history.  Why is that related to the war?  Because he believed so passionately in keeping America safe, he had to pretty much allow all kinds of spending to happen in order to continue funding the war.  Especially when it was unpopular. 

He had Republicans and Democrats alike putting in their own personal spending priorities in return for continued funding for the war.  And he had to sign off on the bill or else face a terrible defeat that would have been detrimental to this country. 

He showed his conservative side when he could.  Look at the expanded SCHIP bill.  When held out on its own, Bush vetoed it because it covered children (and young adults) who came from familes very much capable of providing health coverage. 

However, most of these kinds of bills ended up attached to military spending bills that Bush could not veto.  So, the budget ballooned.  I didn’t like it, and neither did many conservatives.  But I firmly believe that Bush will be proven right when, in 25 years, we have a thriving democracy in Iraq that is friendly to our country.  That was only possible to complete by bribing the politically spinless wimps from both sides in D.C.