Republicans revive 'soft on terror' charge

Republicans are turning up the pressure on President Obama by resurrecting the kind of 'soft on terrorism' charge that has dogged Democrats in the past. Photo: AP

A series of recent controversies — capped by Friday’s decision to pull a key 9/11 trial out of Manhattan — is prompting Republicans to turn up the pressure on President Barack Obama, by resurrecting the kind of “soft on terrorism” charge that has dogged Democrats in the past.

Obama largely escaped any controversy over terrorism in the 2008 campaign, because voters were so focused on the economic crisis and because many were supportive of Obama’s plans to break from the Bush-era war on terror, by ending the Iraq war and shutting down Guantanamo Bay prison.

But a series of stumbles in recent weeks has given Republicans a chance to renew that line of attack against Obama, at a time when he’s already confronting public criticism of his handling of the economy and health care.

The GOP has leapt on Obama’s handling of the Christmas Day bombing plot, saying he was slow to speak to the public about the initial attack and criticizing the Justice Department’s decision to try the suspect in a civilian court, not a military one. Republicans also are criticizing the Justice Department for an FBI decision to end questioning of the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, after less than an hour and read him his Miranda rights.

That came on top of the congressional uproar over Obama’s plan to close Guantanamo Bay prison by moving the detainees to U.S. prisons. Obama missed a self-imposed one-year deadline to close the facility. Republicans also criticized the Justice Department’s decision to send five alleged 9/11 plotters to trial in Manhattan, just blocks from the World Trade Center site — a decision the administration abruptly abandoned Friday after powerful Democrats came out against the New York venue.

“It’s the death of a thousand self-inflicted cuts,” said Peter Feaver, a National Security Council official under presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. “Conservatives like Vice President Cheney have been making the critique from the beginning but it did not stick until the self-inflicted wounds reached a culmination point.. I think they did with the underwear bomber. Prior to that the self-inflicted wounds were separated. They didn’t congeal into a single story line, but now I think they have.”

Republicans howled after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said “the system worked” because passengers on the plane jumped on the Abdulmutallab. And the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, went on a ski vacation shortly after the attack.

“The terrain changed on them with the Christmas bombing. It provided, fairly or unfairly, Exhibit A for what the critics on the right ... were arguing: that by not taking terrorism seriously, you make America more vulnerable. Mirandizing [Abdulmutallab] plays right into that. ‘The system worked’ plays into that. Having someone take a vacation for a week plays right into it,” Feaver said.

GOP stalwarts like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) have been pummeling Obama over these issues since last spring, when the White House badly misjudged congressional sentiment and lost a series of votes related to closing the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Republicans seem emboldened, too, after Sen.-elect Scott Brown aggressively used the terrorism issue to score points with voters in his stunning Massachusetts upset. He attacked Obama's decision to hold civilian trials for terror suspects

Now even mild-mannered Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), hardly a partisan bomb-thrower, is joining the parade of GOP lawmakers taking Obama and his team to task.

“Less than one hour. That’s right, less than one hour. In fact, just 50 minutes. That’s the amount of time that the FBI spent questioning Abdulmutallab, the foreign terrorist who tried to blow up a plane on Christmas Day,” Collins said dramatically in the Republicans’ weekly radio and Internet address Saturday morning. “How did the Obama administration decide to treat a foreign terrorist, who had tried to murder hundreds of people, as if he were a common criminal?”

The White House is pushing back on the GOP’s attacks against closing Gitmo, with spokesman Ben LaBolt saying it’s a “national security imperative” backed by Gen. David Petraeus and other military leaders who see it as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda.

“The administration recognizes that it will take the cooperation of Congress and our allies to close the facility and to bring those detainees who have murdered Americans or conspired to do so to justice,” LaBolt said. “While the previous administration successfully prosecuted only three detainees in more than seven years, we will continue to pursue swift and certain justice and to advance a process that finally holds these detainees accountable for their acts.”

In his State of the Union address, Obama complained broadly about GOP fear-mongering, but he did not mention Guantanamo, the reasons for his preference for trying terrorists in civilian courts, or his plans to bring some prisoners to Illinois for military trials or indefinite detention.

“Let’s put aside the schoolyard taunts about who’s tough,” Obama said. “Let’s reject the false choice between protecting our people and upholding our values.” He said he was working to fill “unacceptable gaps” highlighted by the Christmas Day attack and boasted of aggressive campaigns against Al Qaeda across the globe. “In the last year, hundreds of Al Qaeda's fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or killed — far more than in 2008,” the president said.

Some Democrats want Obama to be even more forceful, including on the importance of civilian trials for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other alleged 9/11 plotters. “Obama and the Department of Justice need to get out there and push back very clearly with the public. ... Frankly, I thought New Yorkers were made of sterner stuff than this — traffic is going to be disrupted?” said Ken Gude of the liberal Center for American Progress.

Behind the scenes, some administration officials are trying to rebut GOP claims. An account of Abdulmutallab’s questioning on Christmas Day, provided by unnamed officials to the Washington Post, said he was given Miranda warnings only after he asked for a lawyer.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he is going to try again next week to win approval of an amendment that would bar a civilian trial for alleged Sept. 11 attack plotters. The measure failed on a 54-45 Senate vote in November, after most Democrats opposed it. However, supporters hope that the attempted Christmas Day attack and Brown's aggressive use of the terrorism issue will persuade more Democrats to oppose civilian terror trials.

“It’s going to be necessary to speak clearly and strongly that having a lawyer for a terror suspect is not being weak on defense,” said Andy Johnson of Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank. However, he added, “This is going to be a tough lift politically.”

The White House takes some solace in polls showing the public generally satisfied with Obama’s handling of the terrorist threat, but the danger for the president lurks below those top-line results, since specifics of his policies are widely unpopular. In a CNN survey taken earlier this month, 65 percent of Americans had at least a moderate amount of confidence in the president’s approach to terrorism and 57 percent endorsed his handling of the Christmas Day attacks. However, 57 percent also said they favored sending Abdulmutallab to a military tribunal, while only 42 percent supported a civilian trial.

Obama’s plan to close Guantanamo also has pretty dismal poll numbers, especially when those surveyed are told of his proposal to bring some suspects to U.S. prisons. A Gallup survey last month found just 30 percent backing that plan, with more than twice as many people, 64 percent, opposed.

Some critics of closing Guantanamo doubt that the administration’s stumbling will do long-term political damage because, they believe, Obama is gradually turning away from his initial approach.

“This president came in a very populist moment taken advantage of by the Democrats who said anything George Bush did was bad. It didn’t matter what it was ... the Obama administration had to change it,” said Kirk Lippold, the commander of the U.S.S. Cole at the time it was bombed.

“Over time, as they have begun to govern vs. campaign, they have realized some of the difficult decisions and policies implemented by the Bush administration had long-term strategic value,” he said. “That’s called the maturing of a chief executive. His administration is just not quite on board yet.”

GOP: Let Harry Reid hang himself

By MANU RAJU | 1/13/10 7:18 AM EST

Politicol.com

Republican senators are backing down from efforts to topple Sen. Harry Reid, having concluded that the Nevada Democrat has done more to hurt himself than they could do with an inevitably futile drive to oust him as Senate majority leader.

In the immediate wake of news that Reid had referred to Barack Obama as a “light-skinned” African-American with no “Negro dialect,” a number of GOP leaders — including Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele — said the majority leader should resign. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to join the chorus Wednesday. And immediately afterward, several other GOP senators decided not to jump into the fray.

Republicans say Reid has done enough to embarrass himself — and to make his already tough bid for a fifth term even harder.

“He’s going to have to live with his words,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), vice chairwoman of the Republican Conference. “Sen. Reid is going to be judged on a number of issues as he faces this election — what he says and what he does.”

Stuck in a 40-vote minority, Republicans were powerless to dethrone Reid on their own, and not a single Democratic senator has called for Reid’s ouster over his racially charged remarks.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) was the only one to come close. He said Monday that he hadn’t yet decided whether Reid should keep his job. Surprised by the comments, Reid’s staff immediately made contact with Feingold’s aides, and Feingold passed back word through staff that he wanted Reid to keep his post.

It’s unclear whether Reid will pay a price with his colleagues; in future negotiations over legislation or committee assignments, some senators may feel emboldened to seek concessions by reminding the leader that they stuck with him in one of his darkest moments.

“Sen. Reid continues to have my support in his role as majority leader,” said Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), who has previously urged Reid to help him regain his seniority on committees. “I know him to be a good man, a strong supporter of President Obama and his agenda, and a tireless advocate on civil rights.”

An aide to Specter — who has in the past stood by other embattled senators — said the senator’s potential committee assignments and seniority in the next Congress have nothing to do with his position on Reid’s standing.

“His apology was heartfelt, and as a person of deep faith he will be harder on himself than anyone else could be, which is why it is especially disappointing to see people trying to politicize this situation,” added Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.).

With Reid’s position secure in the caucus, calling on him to resign — at this point — made little sense to McConnell, who is the lone Republican who must work with Reid on a daily basis. While they’re not close personal friends — they rarely chit-chat, preferring to get down to business quickly — McConnell and Reid have a cordial working relationship.

If McConnell had joined the fracas over Reid, he’d have soured his relations with the majority leader — and could have set a precedent if he ever found the roles reversed.

Asked repeatedly about Reid throughout a 45-minute news conference Tuesday, McConnell refused to criticize the majority leader, to weigh in on his remarks or to call on him to step down.

“Who’s going to be the Democratic leader of the Senate is up to the Democratic conference,” McConnell said.

Other GOP senators have also decided against joining calls by Steele, and Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) for Reid to step aside — including Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John Ensign, Reid’s fellow Nevadan who has long maintained a nonaggression pact with the majority leader.

On Wednesday, Reid is expected to return to Washington for the first time since his comments were reported in “Game Change,” a new book by journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are expected to meet at the White House with Obama in what would be his first face-to-face encounter with the president since the disclosure. Reid has apologized to Obama, who has in turn fiercely defended Reid and his record on civil rights.

To an extent, the GOP playbook resembles what Democrats did after the 2002 remarks of then-Sen. Trent Lott when he seemed to praise Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 1948 presidential candidacy and his support for racial segregation.

At the time, then-Sen. Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, largely stayed away from criticizing Lott — even as some in his leadership team and many rank-and-file Democrats called for Lott to abandon his bid for majority leader in the ensuing Congress. That, coupled with GOP criticism and silence from the Bush White House, led Lott to relent under the barrage of criticism.

In the Reid situation, too, GOP criticism has been sharp — and, some Republicans say, necessary, in order to keep Democrats from sweeping it under the rug.

“If the Republicans held back, then the Democrats would have already starved this story of oxygen and extinguished the flames,” said Ron Bonjean, a GOP strategist who was a top Lott aide at the time of the 2002 controversy. “They have remained engaged in order to give this story the proper attention that it deserves.”

A senior GOP aide said that even if Republicans stop banging the drum over Reid, the damage has been done: The Democrats appear to be flip-flopping after calling on Lott to resign in the wake of a similar controversy; they’ve shown that they will do “anything and everything to retain power in Washington”; and Reid has underlined the fact that he is now the most vulnerable Democratic senator seeking reelection.

Indeed, Stuart Rothenberg, the nonpartisan political analyst, on Tuesday moved Reid’s race from the “toss-up” column to “leans takeover” — making Reid the only incumbent standing for reelection in that category.

Obama takes aim at health plan foes

By POLITICO STAFF | 12/19/09 12:12 AM EST

President Barack Obama used his weekly address Sunday to get in a dig at liberal critics of health reform like former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean – but also faulted Republicans for trying to stall a vote on the bill until after Christmas.

Obama took aim at critics who say the bill doesn’t go far enough to rein in insurance company excesses – a leading charge of liberals like Dean, who earlier this week called on the Senate to scrap the current bill and start over.

The bills in the House and Senate, Obama says, “would represent the toughest measures we’ve ever taken to hold the insurance industry accountable. Anyone who says otherwise simply hasn’t read the bills.”

“Both the House and Senate bills would make it against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition or illness. Both would stop insurers from charging exorbitant premiums on the basis of age, health, or gender. Both would prevent insurance companies from dropping your coverage when you get sick. And both would put a limit on how much you have to pay out of pocket for the treatments you need in a year or lifetime,” Obama said, noting that these fixes were all included in the nearly decade-old Patients’ Bill of Rights that was never signed into law.

Liberals, including Dean and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, emerged this week as vocal critics of the Senate bill, saying it’s been so watered down to reach a compromise with moderates that it’s lost critical fixes to the insurance system, like the creation of a government-run health insurance option to compete with private insurers.

Dean wrote in a Washington Post op-ed Thursday that the measure “expands private insurers’ monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations. . . . I know health reform when I see it, and there isn't much left in the Senate bill.”

Obama also took on Republicans who have said they hope to stop a vote on the bill before Christmas. Republican leaders say Democrats are trying to ram through a bill that lacks public support without giving senators a chance to review it.

Referring to Republican threats to try to delay a vote, Obama says, “Whatever their position on health insurance reform, senators ought to allow an up or down vote. Let’s bring this long and vigorous debate to an end. Let’s deliver on the promise of health insurance reforms that will make our people healthier, our economy stronger, and our future more secure.”