WH Blog: Only We Can Play the Blame Game

You’ve got to be kidding me. On the White House blog, Dan Pfeiffer blasted the political “blame game,” only to turn around and blame George W. Bush.

The Same Old Washington Blame Game

Posted by Dan Pfeiffer on December 30, 2009 at 03:34 PM ESTThere has been a lot of discussion online and in the mainstream media about our response to various critics of the President, specifically former Vice President Cheney, who have been coming out of the woodwork since the incident on Christmas Day.  I think we all agree that there should be honest debate about these issues, but it is telling that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the Administration than condemning the attackers. Unfortunately too many are engaged in the typical Washington game of pointing fingers and making political hay, instead of working together to find solutions to make our country safer.

First, it’s important that the substantive context be clear: for seven years after 9/11, while our national security was overwhelmingly focused on Iraq – a country that had no al Qaeda presence before our invasion – Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda’s leadership was able to set up camp in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they continued to plot attacks against the United States. Meanwhile, al Qaeda also regenerated in places like Yemen and Somalia, establishing new safe-havens that have grown over a period of years.  It was President Obama who finally implemented a strategy of winding down the war in Iraq, and actually focusing our resources on the war against al Qaeda – more than doubling our troops in Afghanistan, and building partnerships to target al Qaeda’s safe-havens in Yemen and Somalia.  And in less than one year, we have already seen many al Qaeda leaders taken out, our alliances strengthened, and the pressure on al Qaeda increased worldwide. …

Perhaps Pfeiffer didn’t get the memo that it was this administration that failed to connect the dots, not the last one. And isn’t it nice, the way he gives credit to Obama for winding down the Iraq war. It’s the very strategy that Obama railed against that wound down the Iraq war. Remember, the surge worked beyond Obama’s wildest dreams. And one can hardly call Maureen Dowd a right winger, maybe she didn’t speak to Dan Pfeiffer before she wrote her latest column.

Via Memeorandum

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