For the past two years, conservatives have repeatedly attacked President Obama for supposedly endangering American lives by not being aggressive enough in going after terrorists. But a year after the failed bombing attempt on Christmas Day for which Obama received immense criticism from the right, a key Bush intelligence official refuted these right-wing attacks today on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley. Retired Vice Admiral Mike McConnell, who served as the Director of National Intelligence under President Bush, said the Obama “administration has been as aggressive, if not more aggressive in pursuing” terror threats:
MCCONNELL: Both general Hayden and I served in the previous administration and we got a lot of criticism for being aggressive, and so on. … My observation is that the new administration has been as aggressive, if not more aggressive in pursuing these issues, because they’re real. And so, regardless of which side of the political spectrum –
CROWLEY: And you commend them for that?
MCCONNELL: I do commend them for that.
Meanwhile, retired Gen. Michael Hayden, who served as the head of the CIA under Bush and appeared along with McConnell on CNN today, warned against overreacting to the “low threshold” attacks that Al-Qaeda and their ideological allies now employ. “We cannot allow our response to that kind of event to turn a tactical success for Al-Qaeda into a strategic defeat for us,” Hayden said, by “overreacting to it by suppressing our commerce and our convenience.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
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