WASHINGTON: Republicans are becoming energized over the Obama administration’s missteps of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a US airliner, saying it is the latest evidence that Democrats do not aggressively fight terrorism to protect the country.
Observers say they also have happily embraced their old campaign mantra that the GOP has successfully kept the country safe during the Bush White House years.
But as Politico reported Wednesday, President Barack Obama reacted faster to the events of last week than George W. Bush did in the eerily similar incident involving “shoe bomber” Richard Reid back in December of 2001, just months after the 9/11 attacks.
Eight years ago, a terrorist bomber’s attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner was thwarted by a group of passengers, an incident that revealed some gaping holes in airline security just a few months after the attacks of Sept. 11.
But it was six days before President Bush, also on vacation, made any public remarks about Reid, and there were virtually no complaints from the press or any opposition Democrats that his response was sluggish or inadequate. “That stands in sharp contrast to the withering criticism Obama has received from Republicans and some in the press for his reaction to Friday’s incident on a Northwest Airlines flight heading for Detroit,” notes Politico.
Democrats have seized on the disparity and are making it a centerpiece of their efforts to counter GOP attacks on the White House.
“This hypocrisy demonstrates Republicans are playing politics with issues of national security and terrorism,” DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan said. “That they would use this incident as an opportunity to fan partisan flames ... tells you all you need to know about how far the Republican Party has fallen and how out of step with the American people they have become.”
Republicans have been building a case that Obama is weak on national security, and in the wake of the intelligence and security failures that led to last week’s incident, they hope their perspective might stick.
Congressional Republicans and GOP pollsters are saying that the administration’s response to the failed attack on the Detroit-bound plane — along with Obama’s decisions to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the intelligence lapses connected to November’s massacre at Fort Hood, Texas — damage the Democrat’s image.
For now, it’s too soon to say whether Republicans’ attacks against Obama on counterterrorism are going to have an effect. The daily tracking polls haven’t shown much of a shift and much of the American public is enjoying the holiday season and may not be fully engaged in the GOP talking points of the day.
Pollsters say that, eleven months from the 2010 midterm elections, it is difficult if not impossible to predict whether the national security issue will affect voters at the polls.
But he has been taking a beating. As Obama leads his party into next year’s congressional elections, pollsters say, his overall approval rating — down to an average of 48 percent from 67 percent last January, according to Pollster.com’s aggregate of several national polls — likely will be tied to the unemployment rate, which hovers at 10 percent.
Only 44 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s handling of the economy, compared with 59 percent last February, when he signed the $787 billion stimulus package, according to National Journal’s Pollster.com.
Just as it appeared that the US economy was finally beginning to find its legs, the real estate market is showing new signs of deterioration.
The renewed worries about housing come against a backdrop of improvement in the boarder economy, with economic growth for the third quarter was more modest than originally reported.
Support for Obama’s handling of his health care initiative, now nearing final approval in Congress, stands at 41 percent — down from 57 percent last February.
Some pollsters say the 2010 midterm elections are likely to be “brutal for Democrats” but that it won’t be solely a result of Obama’s approval ratings.
Some are predicting a repeat of the situation faced by President Clinton, who was re-elected in 1996 despite Democrats’ disastrous showing in the 1994 elections.
