One moron keeping another moron in the dark (hmm, maybe he knew what he was doing, after all)

Things like this happen, when you’re a leftist who is at best indifferent to, and at worst hostile to, the country of which you are the attorney general.

From Politico:

Janet Napolitano: Eric Holder didn’t tell us about plan to try KSM in NYC

Attorney General Eric Holder didn’t consult the Department of Homeland Security before he made plans to try alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday.

“We were not consulted before, but we have been part of a process to do cost estimates of what the security costs would be after the decision was made,” Napolitano told Senate Homeland Security Chairman Joe Lieberman.

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Paul K. writes:

Let’s give Napolitano just a teensy bit of credit for her appearance at today’s hearings. I believe it is the first time she has uttered the phrase “Islamic terrorism” in connection with Fort Hood. I heard it reported live on Fox earlier today and it is covered at their news site. Apparently, Fox is the only news outlet that found it significant.

Senator Lieberman prodded her into it:

During the Senate hearing on Wednesday morning, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the Homeland Security Committee’s chairman, called the administration’s “reluctance” to use terms such as “Islamist extremism” or “Muslim terrorist” a “pet peeve of mine.” He said his “concern” about the issue was “aroused again” when an internal Pentagon review of the events leading up to the attack by Army Maj. Nidal Hasan on Nov. 5, 2009, never used such terms.

Lieberman asked Napolitano: “Has the administration made a decision to avoid any public reference to ‘violent Islamist extremism’ or ‘Muslim terrorists’?”

Napolitano denied any such move.

“There has been no such decision,” she said. “The [phrase] that you refer to, ‘violent Islamic terrorism,’ is something that we fight and deal with every day at the Department of Homeland Security. There is no doubt about that. It was the motivation [for the failed Christmas Day bombing], it was part and parcel of the Ft. Hood killings and other incidents we have seen this year within the United States.”

This comes a month after a senior Obama Administration official characterized the Ft. Hood attack, which killed 13 people and wounded dozens more, as “an act of terrorism.” But that official did not want to be identified publicly, speaking to reporters only on the condition of anonymity.

The same day, shortly after the internal Pentagon report was released, Defense Secretary Robert Gates declined to characterize the attack as terrorism, saying he did not want to disrupt an ongoing legal case. “I’m not going to go there,” he told reporters.

Five days later, on Jan. 20, FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Commitee about “threats from home grown extremists,” including “the tragic shootings at Ft. Hood.”

At Wednesday’s Senate hearing, Lieberman, who has repeatedly described the Ft. Hood shootings as “terrorism,” said he “appreciated” Napolitano doing the same.

LA replies:

Is this what we’re reduced to, that we’re supposed to be appreciative of Napolitano because she quoted Lieberman’s phrase, “violent Islamic terrorism”?

Paul K. replies:

She gets no credit from me, but it’s interesting that Lieberman finally got her mouth to form the words.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 24, 2010 04:02 PM | Send