Scarborough shares Gibson's view that "it's on Barack Obama" if he abandons Bush policies that "kept us safe"
SUMMARY: Fox News' John Gibson and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough each asserted that if President Obama abandons Bush administration policies and procedures "which kept us safe for the last seven, eight years," in Gibson's words, Obama will bear responsibility for any future act of terrorism. However, neither mentioned evidence that President Bush's policies did not eliminate the terrorist threat to America and that some Bush policy decisions, such as the invasion and occupation of Iraq, may, in fact, have aggravated the threat.
Discussing President Obama's January 22 signing of an executive order that set a one-year deadline for closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Fox News Radio host John Gibson and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough each asserted that if Obama abandons Bush administration policies and procedures "which kept us safe for the last seven, eight years," in Gibson's words, Obama will bear responsibility for any future act of terrorism. However, neither mentioned evidence that President Bush's policies did not eliminate the terrorist threat to America and that some Bush policy decisions, such as the invasion and occupation of Iraq, may, in fact, have aggravated the threat.
During the January 22 edition of Fox News' The Live Desk, Gibson said to co-host Trace Gallagher: "[O]ne thing that's clear, Trace, is it's on Barack Obama now. If he backs off from the Bush techniques and policies which kept us safe for the last seven, eight years, if something happens, OK, explain."
Similarly, during that day's edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski read from a January 22 Washington Post op-ed by former Bush chief speechwriter Marc A. Thiessen. Brzezinski read the following:
As the new president receives his intelligence briefings, certain facts must now be apparent: Al-Qaeda is actively working to attack our country again. And the policies and institutions that George W. Bush put in place to stop this are succeeding. During the campaign, Obama pledged to dismantle many of these policies. He follows through on those pledges at America's peril -- and his own. If Obama weakens any of the defenses Bush put in place and terrorists strike our country again, America will hold Obama responsible -- and the Democratic Party could find itself unelectable for a generation.
Co-host Joe Scarborough replied: "Well, that's what we've been saying here, Mika, isn't it? That's what we've been talking about now for months."
Later, Scarborough echoed Thiessen's op-ed, asking Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX): "[I]s it fair to say, in closing, that if Barack Obama's administration strips our agencies of the protection that have been afforded since September 11th, if there are terror attacks in the future, that the responsibility of those terror attacks will rest, in part, with an administration that stripped the Bush safeguards?" Cornyn replied: "Well, I think that's something they ought to be thinking about, because, of course, people debate it, but the one thing you can't debate is that we have not had another terrorist attack on our own soil since 9-11." Scarborough agreed, stating, "No doubt about it."
While Gibson claimed that Bush administration techniques and policies "kept us safe for the last seven, eight years," Media Matters has noted that a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released on April 17, 2008 -- titled "Combating Terrorism: The United States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas" -- found, "The United States has not met its national security goals to destroy terrorist threats and close the safe haven in Pakistan's FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas]." Investigative journalist Ron Suskind has also reported that many CIA analysts believe Al Qaeda leaders have declined to attack the United States for strategic reasons, not because of the Bush administration's counterterrorism policies. And the actual threat posed by several terrorist plots the Bush administration claimed to have thwarted has been disputed, as has the importance of Bush administration policy to the obstruction of terror threats. Moreover, a 2006 National Intelligence Estimate reportedly "found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks."
From the January 22 edition of Fox News' The Live Desk:
GALLAGHER: But back to the most important issue, Gitmo. What are -- what are your callers saying, John? Are they concerned about this?
GIBSON: Well, look, there are lots and lots of people, and they'll start calling immediately, who say they shouldn't close it down -- shouldn't close it down. And I say, well, hey, he promised he would, and now he's doing it. And then there are a lot of -- a lot of people who have said, "I want it closed because I think the fact that the world likes us better is going to make us safer." And when you say, "Well, how? How is it that the high moral ground is going to make us safer?" I mean, I know it will make us safer if we are tourists in certain European countries -- they'll like us better -- but in terms of this country and how we protect ourselves, how is this going to make us -- the one thing that is clear, Trace, is it's on Barack Obama now. If he backs off from the Bush techniques and policies which kept us safe for the last seven, eight years, if something happens, OK, explain.
GALLAGHER: But it's no secret that he wanted to shut down Gitmo; we've been hearing this for a long time.
GIBSON: Right. So'd [Sen. John] McCain [R-AZ].
GALLAGHER: So during that -- and the question would be, so why not do point A first, which is to try and figure out what to do with these 245 suspected terrorists, and then say, "OK, we know what we're going to do with them when the time comes." Instead, the time's going to come, and we still don't know what to do with them. And I guess the question would be, is it the whole cart-before-the-horse thing? You heard a lot of politicians use that phrase, and that seems to be what the quandary is. They don't know.
GIBSON: Dare I suggest that perhaps Mr. President Obama is throwing a bone to the far left in this country which demanded this from the get-go and he's been promising it forever? And that foremost on his mind, in addition to keeping this country safe, is keeping a promise.
From the January 22 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:
BRZEZINSKI: Washington Post, "2,688 Days," Marc Thiessen: "As the new president receives his intelligence briefings, certain facts must now be apparent: Al-Qaeda is actively working to attack our country again. And the policies and institutions that George W. Bush put in place to stop this are succeeding. During the campaign, Obama pledged to dismantle many of these policies. He follows through on those pledges at America's peril -- and his own. If Obama weakens any of the defenses Bush put in place and terrorists strike our country again, America will hold Obama responsible -- and the Democratic Party could find itself unelectable for a generation."
SCARBOROUGH: Well, that's what we've been saying here, Mika, isn't it? That's what we've been talking about now for months.
BRZEZINSKI: I think it's a fine line, and you know what? I would just like to add for the sake of argument that the problem that Obama confronts, for example, with Gitmo, is that this is a mess that President Bush has created, creating this situation --
SCARBOROUGH: A mess that --
BRZEZINSKI: Hold on.
SCARBOROUGH: No. I'm not --
BRZEZINSKI: -- creating a situation where you have --
SCARBOROUGH: Osama bin --
BRZEZINSKI: Hold on.
SCARBOROUGH: -- Laden created this situation --
BRZEZINSKI: Let me speak for a moment.
SCARBOROUGH: -- when he took down the twin towers.
BRZEZINSKI: I did not debate you on torture, but let me debate you on this. He created this situation, which challenges every facet of our Constitution and what our country stands by. And I know it's out of the country --
SCARBOROUGH: No it doesn't. I can't let you say that.
BRZEZINSKI: Well, let me finish.
SCARBOROUGH: You've got to listen, Mika.
BRZEZINSKI: It challenges our principles. And now, the question is what to do with these people. And it's wrong to have them sitting there for years --
SCARBOROUGH: Mika --
BRZEZINSKI: -- and years, and years on end.
SCARBOROUGH: -- that is speaking in generalities. Again, I want you --
BRZEZINSKI: So, it -- but my -- what -- as Obama --
SCARBOROUGH: I want you to find me the Nazi prisoner that was provided habeas corpus.
BRZEZINSKI: As Barack Obama --
SCARBOROUGH: I want you to find me the Nazi prisoner that was read the Miranda rights on the beaches of Normandy. This --
PAT BUCHANAN (MSNBC political analyst): Right.
SCARBOROUGH: -- is lunacy.
BRZEZINSKI: All right, let me speak. All I'm saying is that this is a situation that is not good, that Bush has put in place, and now, Obama, as he tries to deal with it, is going to run risks.
SCARBOROUGH: You're blaming George Bush for protecting America.
BRZEZINSKI: No, I'm not.
BUCHANAN: All right, let me ask you --
BRZEZINSKI: I'm blaming him for creating a very bad --
BUCHANAN: If you let -- if we let -- let's say we let --
SCARBOROUGH: He didn't create it. Osama bin Laden did.
BUCHANAN: Let's say we let 150 of these guys go 'cause we just can't make the case against them, and they go out and blow up some airliners, would you talk to the parents of the children on those airliners and tell them, we had to stand up for our ideals? That's why that guy is out there and that's why he put that bomb on that plane?
BRZEZINSKI: And that is --
BUCHANAN: Would you take moral responsibility for that/
BRZEZINSKI: That is the challenge that Obama has to deal with. And I'm not sure what to do now that this Gitmo has been created --
SCARBOROUGH: Well --
BUCHANAN: But wouldn't you not feel responsibility yourself --
BRZEZINSKI: -- and these people are sitting there.
BUCHANAN: -- for advocating that?
BRZEZINSKI: No. That's the -- that's my point and that's the point of this op-ed -- is that the challenge is now in place, but not because Barack Obama has come up with some bad ideas, he has to now deal --
SCARBOROUGH: It's -- but you can't blame --
BRZEZINSKI: -- with the policies in place from the Bush administration.
SCARBOROUGH: -- George Bush because we live in the age of terror.
BRZEZINSKI: I'm questioning him; I'm not blaming him.
SCARBOROUGH: Question him, that's fine -- that's what we as Americans do.
BRZEZINSKI: I'm questioning the whole creation of Gitmo, and why it's there, and why -- how it's being conducted, and I think now Obama has a big problem on his hands because of that.
[...]
MARK HALPERIN (Time senior political analyst): Senator, good to talk to you. You talk about -- people talk about your party being a loyal opposition. You say you want him to succeed. You can read the poll numbers. What is the point of the Republican Party during this period? Is it to nitpick at some of these people who are going to be confirmed? Is it to propose new ideas? Is it to find common ground with the president? What's the point for your party now?
CORNYN: Well, I think what President Obama and his administration is starting to find already is that governing is hard -- harder work than running for election. They ran a flawless campaign, but governing is hard work. Dealing with these important questions about closing Guantánamo Bay -- what are we going to do? Release some of these dangerous people into the American public? Are we going -- I don't want them in Texas, that's for sure.
What are we going to do with our intelligence officials, who were following legal guidance about what they could do to get actionable intelligence from some of these detainees? We
certainly can't turn around and then prosecute them, and further, make them risk averse which, of course, the 9-11 Commission said risk aversion was one of the big problems we had that resulted in 9-11. So, these are legitimate areas for policy discussion. We need to do it civilly and in a dignified way, but I think we've got to stick to our principles.
SCARBOROUGH: Hey, Senator, is it fair to say, in closing, that if Barack Obama's administration strips our agencies of the protection that have been afforded since September 11th, if there
are terror attacks in the future, that the responsibility of those terror attacks will rest, in part, with an administration that stripped the Bush safeguards?
CORNYN: Well, I think that's something they ought to be thinking about, because, of course, people debate it, but the one thing you can't debate is that we have not had another terrorist attack on our own soil since 9-11.
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah.
CORNYN: That's not a mistake; that's the result of the hard work of a lot of good people and our troops in the battlefield. So, we got to be very careful and thoughtful and try to work together in the best interests of our country.
SCARBOROUGH: No doubt about it. Senator, thanks for being with us.
BRZEZINSKI: Thank you, Senator.
CORNYN: Thank you.
SCARBOROUGH: Senator John Cornyn. Keep up the fight.
denial is not merely a river in egypt. we had 9-11 because of bush. invading iraq did not make us one bit safer. nor would massive amounts of military spending have prevented 9-11. paying attention would have. and the president who told us that he wanted bin laden dead or alive told us a year later that he didn't know where he was and was not really concerned about it. this being after bin laden was allowed to escape at tora bora.
I'm of the belief that Bush reacted to 9/11 exactly how bin Laden expected him to. Inside his cave, bin Laden is looking at the mess in Iraq, the condition of our economy, the erosion or our civil liberties, and the downturn of worldwide opinion toward us, and laughing his @$$ off. His goal was something far greater than just killing innocent people. He wanted to see our leadership freak out, our citizens turn against each other, and our capitalist system pushed to the limits. Mission Accomplished.
I don't think bin Laden is really that super-villain type of smart. More likely he expected the US military to be as weakend by trying to fight an unconventional war in the wilds of Afghanistan as the Soviets were. Remember, that war was one of the key events in the chain of mistakes that ended up leading to the collapse of the USSR. Osama probably thought he could get history to repeat by provoking a war in Afghanistan. I don't think he could possibly have predicted that we'd just quietly walk away from that and pick another fight somewhere else.
Could very well be. I'm all speculation, of course, when it comes to what bin Laden was actually thinking and hoping for. But one thing I can be sure of is that he's more than pleased with the aftermath.
bin Laden hoping that U.S. forces would get worn down in Afghanistan is no doubt a factor.
However, when you start seeing him in terms of being or not being "super-villain smart", you are moving understanding of him in a not useful direction. Remember that he was educated as an engineer. There is every chance that he sees the world, and politics, as a system. He is also free of the U.S. spin machine and can observe our ways and social forces with detached intelligence. And, there was a key group trying to push *Clinton* to go into Iraq...note some of the names, recall how some of them were placed in the Bush II administration: http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
Bush was already predisposed to go into Iraq, cause of his friends, they only needed an "acceptable reason". Don't think that bin Laden wasn't capable of data gathering.
Also, I long ago noticed that those who read bin Laden's writings stated that he wished to get Islam and the west involved in a Holy War (which he felt Islam would win--but no matter, there could be no good results from that, whoever "won"). To do that best, it's no more than a matter of manipulating polarization. Increased polarization increases the probablility that factions will develop and even go into conflict.
It really doesn't take much to predict the dual effect of a 9/11 type attack. 1) It *really* increases the polarization level, especially given the administration that was in place. 2) It gives the PNAC folks an easily shaped, and hoped for, springboard into Iraq.
Thus, a system thinking engineer would see a very good probablility that the U.S. would go into Iraq as a result of his 9/11 "polarization bomb". (And the U.S. involvement would very usefully take out Saddam Hussein, a bin Laden enemy, *and* turn Iraq into an Al Quaeda recruiting ground--again, due to the polarizing effects of a U.S. Iraq invasion.)
please...you don't honestly think that "we had 9-11 because of Bush"...how far off can you be. did bubba clinton pay attention during the 1st attack of the world trade center? I suppose that it was bush's fault for that also...
did bubba clinton pay attention during the 1st attack of the world trade center? - blogomatic2009
You mean the attack that occurred barely a month into Clinton's first term? The one that had no warnings, unlike 9/11? The one in which the perpetrators were captured, tried and convicted? That attack?
yes, i honestly think we had 9-11 because of bush. because he deliberately, note deliberately, downgraded and ignored the threat of terrorist attacks in this country. as richard clarke said, it was as if the bush people were "frozen in amber" when they returned to office after 8 years, still concentrating on things like saddam and missile defense and ignoring the threat of terrorism that had grown in that time. the 9-11 report said "perhaps the most incisive of the advisors on terrorism to the new administration was the holdover richard clarke". but the bush administration curtailed both his duties and power in what clarke clearly saw as a demotion from his position in the clinton administration.
had bush paid the same attention that clinton did, i think it's quite likey that the 9-11 plot would be just another footnote in history, as were other disrupted actions in this country during the clinton administration.
As the lone loyal Fox viewer that I am, I must voice my displeasure that Al Quida hasn't been beaten since Obama took over. What is going on over there at the White house? Methinks the new president is placing homing chips on the terrorists that terrorize me and are bad people. Hopefully, when released back into the wild, they will lead us to the hive nest and we then can get the rest of Iraq's terror network.
I'm laughing my @$$ off. This is the funniest thing I've read in a while. I love it! (And I sincerely hope that's how you meant me to take it. Otherwise... scary.) :)
I am humbley waiting the release of bluray discs that can be played on my $25 dvd. That way I can view things differently....
That "Bush inherited 9/11" stuff would be easier to swallow if Bush had mentioned terrorism once in his entire life before 9/11.
And if Obama's presidency goes through 4 (or 8 maybe) years of no terrorist attacks, then it's thanks to Bush because of what he started.
The revisionists are in full force already.
I know that this is quite off topic, but speaking of Fox revisionism, the new agenda on their list is "The New Deal was a disaster". I think Robert Greenwald should do another "Fox Attacks" video about The New Deal.
Since "the New Deal was a disaster," and the people of the US re-elected the New Deal's architect three times, Fox is clearly implying that democracy doesn't work, (in this they have four allies on the Supreme Court.)
Look for the neoroyalists to start plugging for another Bush Restoration, after Sarah Palin has entertained the masses for a couple of years.
And if we are attacked within 4 (or maybe8) years, it will be blamed on Mr. Bush (.....'cuz he started it,) the lilliputions will say. That's revisionism at it's hypicritical pinnacle.
Wow. It just does not end. And it is only just beginning.
It seems as though the last 8 years, UNFORTUNATELY, have brain washed so many as to what the United States stands for.
What is most alarming is how fear can precipitate such responses.
What we are hearing is bias and I am glad that this site is here to clarify and allow us to air our views hopefully in a respectful way.
It is early yet....only hours.....time is needed to see if it will work....after all, it has been almost 8 years since the attack....
My parents were immigrants..... they taught me that the United States stood for everything the "neocon right" is not.
God Bless Mom and Dad, RIP
I posted this earlier and I believe it applies here:
Are you using wikipedia as a basis for your analysis? The American cities you list and the attacks were not planned by professionals and to my understanding were not even at the operational level but more like conspiracies. The fact is that before 9/11 the light was "blinking red" that Osama bin Laden was poised to attack America most likely in NYC probably a symbol of our economic might and probably involving airliners. There was no need for the PATRIOT ACT, for the violations FISA,nor GITMO and abandonment of international law and the Geneva Conventions as we had all the information we needed with the existing law. It was a failure by the Bush administration that didn't take those threats seriously not in the law or our agencies. So I find it absurd to be discussing if the policies Bush put in place has kept us safe since they weren't necessary. Liberty or security is a false choice? We prosecuted Japanese soldiers that used "waterboarding" (tortured) on our troops for war crimes now when we do it, it's OK? How do you rationalize that? Where do you draw the line? Furthermore, we are on the verge of a economic collaspe that has the posibility to be more devasting than last centuries "Great Depression" which led to the second world war, what do you think the result to the world would be if there was another major war? Do you think Bush's policy of pre-emptive war has made us safer in the nuclear age? The policies of the Bush administration has weakened us not strenthened us. Media Matters said this:"
While Gibson claimed that Bush administration techniques and policies "kept us safe for the last seven, eight years," Media Matters has noted that a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released on April 17, 2008 -- titled "Combating Terrorism: The United States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas" -- found, "The United States has not met its national security goals to destroy terrorist threats and close the safe haven in Pakistan's FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas]." Investigative journalist Ron Suskind has also reported that many CIA analysts believe Al Qaeda leaders have declined to attack the United States for strategic reasons, not because of the Bush administration's counterterrorism policies. And the actual threat posed by several terrorist plots the Bush administration claimed to have thwarted has been disputed, as has the importance of Bush administration policy to the obstruction of terror threats. Moreover, a 2006 National Intelligence Estimate reportedly "found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks."
That's true. We need cooperation with our allies to break up networks. Terrorists aren't necessarily in one location where war over there or suspending civil liberties here will get them. Bush is much like Reagan in doing symbolic bombing while not really fixing the problem.
Good points. It could easily be argued that Bush's policies have made the world a more dangerous place, and that it's just pure luck that we haven't been attacked at home again since 9/11.
This "Bush kept us safe" nonsense is just a GOP talking point. They are hedging their bets that we'll be hit again during Obama's term, and they can use that against him in 2012.
And if we don't get hit, the fixed-news nitwits will claim it's just because his name is Barack HUSSEIN Obama, he's a secret Muslim and the evil-doers aren't hitting us just to make Bush look bad.
It could easily been argued and has been argued rather successfully but that's not the story the MSM chose to report. They're going to try to lionize him as "the man who ended terrorism" just like they did with Reagan as "the man who ended communism."
No. At that point it will be because the terrorists have chosen not to attack us for strategic reasons.
Defense of torture's usefulness in fighting the so-called War on Terror isn't really about keeping Americans safe. It's about looking tough. The frequent Brzezinski-Scarborough friction on "Morning Joe" shows the picture in microcosm. Mika plays the nerd, arguing that torture is immoral, illegal and ineffective. Joe evokes the playground bully, cutting Mika off and talking tough.
The "enhanced interrogation" question always found Bush answering with a sly wink and a nod, while Cheney stressed the need to work the "dark side." No wonder: Embracing Jack Bauer tactics made them look tough. And under controlled conditions, toughness not only is electable but re-electable. As Grand Moff Tarkin said in "Star Wars," "We will rule through fear."
Bush surprised lots of people when he didn't issue blanket pardons on torture. But, then, granting pardons doesn't look tough. He knows any prosecutions would stop well short of him.
President Obama's charge for everyone to grow up is bound to make the Joe Scarboroughs all the more shrill. "Morning Joe" features a "Today's Op-eds" segment. Now that Bush is out of office, I predict a flurry of op-eds from those who saw torture up close and came away with revulsion.
Jerry Elsea
You mention something that rarely gets discussed in all this and it drives me crazy: Torture doesn't work. Every intelligence expert in the world acknowledges that torture does not produce reliable intelligence but the talking heads rarely discuss that point. It's always an argument about whether waterboarding is really torture or some stupid hypothetical scenario or Jack Bauer. Face facts-Torture does not work even if you call it enhanced interrogation.
Yeah, but torture is more MANLY.
"You mention something that rarely gets discussed in all this and it drives me crazy: Torture doesn't work."
Actually, it gets discussed quite often. From what I've seen, torture does work in specific situations. It worked, short term, for the Gestapo, the French in Algeria, and the British in Northern Ireland. By "working," I mean that resistance cells in contained areas were compromised and eliminated through the use of torture. However, even though the French won the "Battle of Algiers" through the use of torture, they lost the war. Even though the British had overwhelming numeric, strategic, logistic, and financial advantages, and gained much useful (an probably much misleading) information through torture, they never achieved a military victory. Peace came to NI when the British realized that the only possible solution was a political one.
Whatever information we might or might not have gained through the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques," (the Gestapo also had euphemisms for torture) the long-term results have been catastrophic. According to Jane Mayer's The Dark Side, the Muslim world was overwhelmingly rejecting Bin Laden's message until Abu Ghraib. When they learned that we were no better than their brutal and corrupt regimes, they started to turn against us.
As far as what torture says about us, this gentleman is more eloquent than I could hope to be, and having undergone torture, he has more cred.
http://www.truthout.org/012309A
I don't see how they could say that if America gets attacked again it will be Obama's fault. I have every faith that Obama will do a good job a cooling down the emotions of the terrorists. Having a black president will certainly open their eyes a little.
April
Oh, just hide and watch. These guys are not interested in facts. Just as they are calling our present crisis the "Obama recession", they will blame him for everything bad that happens from this point forward.
So which Bush policy kept us safe? Ignoring warnings of an impending attack, or torturing prisoners at Gitmo and Abu Grhaib which inflamed the Middle East and drew insurgents to Iraq in droves?
I'd rather live in a room full of whirling blades than one more second of the Bush years.
Randy
"kept us safe"
I'm so sick of hearing that bogus claim. Yes, there have been no terrorist attacks on US soil in the seven years since 9/11. How many terrorist attacks on US soil were there in the seven years BEFORE 9/11? Duh.
Not to mention the fact 9/11 happened on Bush's watch in the first place.