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Americans expect more from those charged with identifying this country's enemies and protecting the American people than the bobbing and weaving non-answers of politicians.
A year ago, Obama terrorism czar John O. Brennan was reportedly torpedoed as the president's choice for CIA director because he publicly supported enhanced interrogation as an anti-terror tool. That didn't seem to be the John Brennan we saw on the Sunday talk show circuit.
Brennan was asked by Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" why the U.S. shouldn't halt all transfers of terrorist detainees to Yemen after alleged Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab told authorities that other al-Qaida operatives in Yemen were ready to follow in his footsteps.
Brennan's response sounded like he spends as much time reading Democratic National Committee talking points as he does perusing intelligence reports. The Obama administration has only released 42 detainees from Guantanamo Bay, he noted, compared with the Bush administration's 532. Seven of the 42 returned to Yemen during November and December, he said.
"We've had close dialogue with the Yemeni government about the expectations that we have as far as what they're supposed to do when these detainees go back," Brennan said, adding that "several of those detainees were put into Yemeni custody right away. We're continuing to talk with them. What we're trying to do is to do this in a very measured fashion."
The appropriate response might be: protecting Americans "in a very measured fashion" is no virtue.
"Close dialogue" is of very limited value when dealing with a nearly 100% Muslim nation where non-Muslims are constitutionally prohibited from holding elected office. Has Brennan been drinking the Kool-Aid at the White House Mess? Does he now think talk can be the chief weapon against terrorism?
It is outrageous to send any detainee in U.S. custody back to such a hotbed of terrorist plotting and training — even before what happened on Christmas Day.
According to Brennan, the "Guantanamo facility must be closed" because "it has served as a propaganda tool for al-Qaida." But giving al-Qaida propaganda victories beats giving them their operatives back.
At least as discouraging was Brennan's defense of treating Abdulmutallab as a civilian criminal rather than as an enemy combatant. As Wallace pointed out, "once he gets his Miranda rights, he doesn't have to speak at all." Brennan's inadequate answer: "He doesn't have to, but ... if he wants to, in fact, engage with us in a productive manner, there are ways that he can do that."
Fact is, once some ACLU-style lawyer explains to the likes of Abdulmutallab his rights, the U.S. government won't be getting any more potentially life-saving information from him.
When you cut through the verbal fog of the White House's terrorism chief,
that's the kind of bad news that remains.