Another columnist asks administration for blanky, cup of cocoa

Image via Wikipedia

There is almost nothing the Obama administration does regarding terrorism that makes me feel safer. Whether it is guaranteeing captured terrorists that they will not be waterboarded, reciting terrorists their rights, or the legally meandering and confusing rule that some terrorists will be tried in military tribunals and some in civilian courts, what is missing is a firm recognition that what comes first is not the message sent to America’s critics but the message sent to Americans themselves. When, oh when, will this administration wake up?

- via Obama administration is tone-deaf to concerns about terrorism

Awesome. It’s finally happening, you guys. Richard Cohen is becoming the male Peggy Noonan.

In the past, I have written about how Noons is a terrible columnist whose first response to tragic events is to rip open her shirt and throw herself at any burly man who claims to have a “plan.” When there’s the slightest hint of an impending conflict, Noons practically shouts that she wants a penis inside of her. During the critical weeks after 9/11, she freely expressed her longing for John Wayne because he fits her image of one of those “burly men,” even though Wayne was a draft-dodging, woman-abusing drug addict.

Also see: MoDo, who dislikes Obama because he refuses to hug her:

He’s so sure of himself and his actions that he fails to see that he misses the moment to be president — to be the strong father who protects the home from invaders, who reassures and instructs the public at traumatic moments.

He’s more like the aloof father who’s turned the Situation Room into a Seminar Room.

Now, Richard Cohen (Rico?) has joined the stellar ranks of They Who Wet Themselves Constantly. What is it about the job of columnist that appears to attract the most hysterically insecure individuals?

Kidding aside, I’m really worried about Rico. If he’s been feeling this deeply unstable ever since terrorists have been read their Miranda rights, then his anxiety dates back to the Bush years when Richard Reid (the shoe bomber) was read his legal rights — four times in two days.

This means Rico has been suffering in relative silence for nine years. Come here, you big, stubborn fool. Free hugs!

A hefty dose of disorientation also appears to accompany Rico’s night terrors:

The Obama administration, on the other hand, seems to have bent over backward to prove to the world it is not the Bush administration and will, almost no matter what, ensure that everyone gets the benefit of American civil liberties. But the paramount civil liberty is a sense of security and this, sad to say, has eroded under Barack Obama. Repeatedly, the administration has shown poor judgment. Abdulmutallab’s silence is a scream that something is wrong.

Actually, America’s “paramount civil liberty” is freedom. Freedom of religion, speech, the right to due process, to a trial, to own property, and to privacy. Those are the liberties the Founding Fathers saw as worthy of protection, and that includes not being waterboarded by the CIA (even if the accused are foreigners).

As tends to happen during moments of national crisis, weak people like Rico willingly throw every civil liberty out the window because in their myopic hysteria, they forget that torture is ineffective (according to actual security and interrogation experts,) and acts as a catalyst for the very behavior the US claims it’s working to stem.

These Very Serious Tough Guys advocate “taking the gloves off” at precisely the moments when the law is most crucial despite the fact that they themselves are completely unqualified to make national security judgments. Attending Columbia and occasionally sexually harassing co-workers doesn’t qualify Rico as a national security expert.

The actual security experts, DNI, DHS and the NCTC, all participated in a national security briefing on Abdulmutallab and did know about the Miranda rights decision, and even under military procedures, he would have been given a lawyer. As Andrea Mitchell points out, his Nigerian family members would not have helped earn cooperation from Abdulmutallab if he did not have access to a lawyer and was being treated well.

Additionally, part of the reason the KSM trial may be fucked is because the CIA waterboarded him over 183 times, thereby permanently tainting any information gathered during the torture sessions. I guess Rico is proposing that the CIA should have repeated this behavior and “gotten tough” with Abdulmutallab, too.

Rico poses the question, “When will the administration wake up?” and then lists a litany of complaints about how the Obama administration fails to make him feel like a child who is held by daddy. But what is Rico’s solution? What Tough Guy measures would he instate if he was prez? Mandatory waterboarding and military tribunals of all suspects?

Viva Rico, el dictador!