Obama Adviser: No Smoking Gun in Airline Bomb Plot (Just a smoking bomb in seat 19A over Detroit)

AP via Houston Chronicle ^ | Sunday, January 3, 2009 | Anne Gearan

[P-Marlowe]

Are they going to use that excuse when some “isolated extremist” detonates a nuke from the top of Sears Tower?

[livius]

One way, last minute - and in cash. $2,800 from Nigeria.

I got stopped, was interviewed and had my luggage tossed by security at Newark because I had gotten a last-minute ticket on Expedia to go to NYC (where I go fairly often because I grew up there, have family there, and lived there for much of my life). But I guess it’s different if you’re a terrorist-affiliated foreigner whose very own father has reported you...

[MinuteGal]

I hope this guy's estupido statement gets the play that Napolitano's estupido statement got.

She was not and will not be fired, nor will she resign, but at least she's recognized now as an inept fool......and she's skating on thin ice. One more slip of her forked tongue and she'll be out.

Hope this Dumb Dilbert "security adviser" for Obama eventually meets a similar fate.

Both of them are educated far beyond their competence.

Leni

[mazda77]

You can’t see a smoking gun when the bullet is already through your forehead and exiting out where your cowlick used to be.

Did I do the wrong thing by giving up a military career in intelligence because of having to deal with blithering idiots like this dolt? YES! Because I would have been in the same boat with the CIA.

[TomGuy]

There is no smoking gun," Brennan said. "There was no single piece of intelligence that said, 'this guy is going to get on a plane.'"

That is because someone else bought his ticket, paid cash. He didn't even have a passport (per some reports). No luggage (per some reports).

And his father had just recently reported concerns to officials.

How much info does it take?

[dirtboy]

I was given extended screening last summer when I flew from Philly to Colorado. I guess because I was a bit sweaty, that made me a target. The fact that I had just finished checking two 40 pound duffle bags that I had transported via train and my back didn’t have anything to do with it to them. Meanwhile, this guy buys a one-way last-minute ticket in cash and gets no special screening. Maybe we need to ask terrorists to sweat more so someone notices them.

[Starboard]

“We had bits and pieces of information,” Brennan said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The father’s warning, he said, was “one set of data.”

That’s the very nature of intelligence. You’re expected to tie bits and pieces together based on experience, knowledge, and history. Rarely do you have the good fortune of having all of the ‘tiles’ that enable you to clearly see the full picture of the mosaic. It doesn’t get much easier than having the “father’s warning”; that was KEY information. A gift in intelligence terms. These people are rank amateurs.

[Right Winged American]

Magslinger's dandy (and absolutely dead on!) sig line line about the current administration seems perfectly appropriate here:

"Cry 'Malaise!' and let slip the dogs of incompetence!"

[Marty62]

‘this guy is going to get on a plane”
...
He is flying all over the world, Britain, Houston, Ghana, Yemen, and then detroit.

Geez why would ANYONE think he was going to get on a plane?

IS THIS GUY FOR REAL?

This is the danger of having Democrats in the CIA. (He was in CIA, now a Democrat Admin Member)

[paulycy]

How much info does it take?

Well golly, he never blew up a plane with his underwear before. Why should we think he might do so now????????????????????????? :0/

[livius]

Maybe we need to ask terrorists to sweat more so someone notices them.

LOL! Well, if they're obviously Muslims, even excessive sweating seems to be pardoned. Not to mention invisibility.

I was in the airport in Atlanta a couple of years ago and there was a foreign-born Muslim (by his dress) with his family. There were a couple of small children who hovered around him.

And then there was their "mother" - a cloth-shrouded monstrosity (with the strange eye-screen on "her" burka) who was avoided by the children, was at least a foot taller than Daddy and had male ankles and wrists.

I doubt that "she" got checked.I wonder who they were smuggling in?

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

Translation: It's not our fault unless they send out a videotaped news release declaring their intentions a month before an attack.

[Rapscallion]

"There is no smoking gun," Brennan said. "There was no single piece of intelligence that said, 'this guy is going to get on a plane.'"

It should have aroused suspicions and alarm and raised questions when he bought a one-way ticket, had no passport, had been rejected for a visa, and carried no luggage.

Hey, it's not rocket science...

[jetson]

No smoking gun...just a smoking usurper.

[paulycy]

No smoking gun...just a smoking usurper.

Are they trying to say that the knickerbomber didn't end up with a smoking gun?

[Brytani]

...just a smoking usurper.

Is that something like a flaming a$$hole?

[riri]

I flew today. It’s like playing Russian Roulette and I kept repeating that loud enough for everyone around me to hear.

[virgil]

It’s just typical bureacratic gov’t b.s. In the end, it will be “nobody’s fault” and let’s move on. They’re all running to cover their butts. The same bureacracy is going to control our healthcare system.

[Chgogal]

By your description, the very tall Bin Laden. Wouldn't that be hilarious?

[jetson]

Are they trying to say that the knickerbomber didn't end up with a smoking gun?

Maybe overcooked.