Memo to Fox & Friends: No "heads roll{ed}" after Bush-era terrorist attacks

[babylonsister]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201001050015

Memo to Fox & Friends: No "heads roll" after Bush-era terrorist attacks

January 05, 2010 10:27 am ET by Julie Millican


Always a few days late to the party, the Fox & Friends brigade took some time out of their busy morning to attack President Obama for his "detached," "tepid" response to the Christmas day attempted bombing of a Northwest airline flight. "It took him three days" to respond, co-host Steve Doocy sniffed, while Brian Kilmeade reported that he didn't think "anyone was going to get fired" because of the incident.

The right has been complaining about Obama's response pretty much since the incident took place, as Huffington Post's Sam Stein pointed out on December 29, 2009. But, as Stein noted, Bush waited six days to respond to a shoe-bomber Richard Reid's very similar attempted bombing of a passenger plane, with no complaint from the right. In fact, it seems that the Obama administration's initial response and the Bush initial administration's response to similar attempted terror attacks, were, well, very similar. Both administration's monitored "the situation," and once enough facts were known to reply, the President responded. The only difference is that Obama responded publically sooner.

This, of course, is no matter to Republicans, including former Bush administration officials who were actually in office when the Reid incident occurred, and their cohorts in the media.

As for Fox & Friends' feigned concern over whether "heads" were going to "roll," because of the attempted attack (like, oh say, Director of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano's), no Bush administration heads seem to have rolled because of Reid's attempted attack. In fact, no heads rolled after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, where over 3,000 people were killed. Indeed, in 2004, Bush awarded former CIA director George Tenet, who was the CIA director during both the September 11 attacks and Reid's attempted attack, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The FBI Director at the time, Robert Mueller, is still FBI Director today. Then-Attorney General John Aschroft remained on the job, as did Condoleezza Rice, who was at the time, Bush's National Security advisor. Of course, Rice was later promoted to Secretary of State. I don't recall the right-wing media calling for any of their heads back in 2001.

Compare that silence to the hand-wringing and chest thumping reverberating from right-wing media figures and Republican politicians today, with their relentless, politically motivated assaults on everyone from Napolitano, to Attorney General Eric Holder, to Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan. Oh how their principles change when there's a Democrat in charge.

[90-percent]

1. It's safe to say

That no one in the entire American government lost their job as a result of negligence or incompetence or sabotage.

The only government official that EVER APOLOGIZED to the American people was Richard Clarke.

If there ever was a time on our history as a country to fire a bunch of people, this was certainly it. Nothing and no cry for it from almost anybody. Save the 9/11 truth movement.

-90% Jimmy

[aquart]

2. I would have liked a nice collection of heads in a basket.

Not as tasty as muffins, but still somehow satisfying.