Incompetent and untrustworthy

No wonder the liberal media are in a panic to save the Obama administration. Because when the likes of Bob Schieffer call you out you know you're in deep yogurt. Jennifer Rubin quotes Schieffer from yesterday's Face the Nation. Pretty scathing stuff:

BOB SCHIEFFER: Finally today, Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano is getting hammered because her first response to the undie bomber fiasco was that the system worked. We shouldn’t have been surprised. Sure, she looks a little silly now that the facts are dribbling out. But she was just following the modern bipartisan public relations template in this age of information management. First, play down the problem. Second, emphasize what did not go wrong. Assure us that those in charge are investigating, and most important, emphasize no one in any position of responsibility is at fault. It’s not lying. But it’s not exactly the whole truth, certainly not the whole story. All she left out was that part about asking us to respect the privacy of those involved. Oh, I’m sorry. I got the government spin mixed up with the Tiger spin. Here is the difference. Tiger can hire as many people as he wants to make his excuses. It may do him no good but it’s his money to spend as he wishes. When government officials insult us with spin they’re doing it on our dime, which is supposed to be used to operate the government, not to hold news conferences to tell us what a fine job people on the public payroll are doing. As we learned during Katrina, self-serving spin at the first sign of crisis does not help the situation. It makes it worse. Because it makes it harder to believe anything the government says. Real security is built on trust in government. That requires truth, which should be the beginning of government presentations, not the fallback position. Back in a minute. [emphasis added]

Yowser is right. True, Mr. Schieffer is no conservative, but he is apparently a grown-up.

And then there's the incompetence. Ms. Rubin asks:

Really, what have the Obami done well? Not the stimulus plan. Not crafting a popular and coherent health-care bill. And not instilling confidence that there are competent people who can, when bombarded with intelligence, put it together to prevent an attack or even craft a policy designed to extract information after an attack.

You may argue that they aren't really trying to stimulate the economy, "reform" "healthcare," or fight terrorism. Surely, though, they're highly motivated to make themselves look good. But they're bungling their own PR as well.

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

Most recent posts here.