'The Gloves are off'

By Ralph Alter

After a year of handling the Pink Pantheresque Obama national security team with kid gloves,
Senator Kit Bond, (R. Mo.), announced that the gloves are now off:

"It is hard to trust anyone in the White House right now," Bond says. "The national security team has become a bench of political spokespeople. It doesn't speak well of the individuals, but let's remember that these continued attacks must be coming from the top, from the president himself, to try and deflect the mistakes they made in giving Miranda rights to the Christmas Day bomber."

More specifically, regarding John Brennan, Obama's deputy national-security advisor:

"(He) needs to go," and is no longer "credible." Brennan's recent "troubling decisions," he adds, "have destroyed my confidence in him." Firing Brennan, he says, "would be part"of fixing Obama's national-security woes, though not enough. "A drastic change in policy is needed," he says. "Our problem now is that we have to wonder whether we can trust [Brennan] after he has been a mouthpiece for the political arm that I thought only came out of the White House press office."

Bond, the respected vice-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is merely the lead singer in the swelling chorus of calls for an injection of backbone into Obama's invertebrate national security apparatus. It seems very unlikely that Brennan will stay on board for long. The calls for the dismissal of the cartoonish Big Sis at Homeland Security and Eric Holder at The Department of Justice will only continue to grow as well.

You know Obama will never take responsibility for the weakness and incompetence of his national security team. B.O.'s M.O. has been to jettison those who threaten his image. Do you think when his Blackberry rings, it plays "The Wheels on the Bus?" If you listen carefully, you can hear the Obama bus warming up.

Ralph Alter blogs at Right on Target, www.rightot.blogspot.com