It's Beyond Contempt

More.‘Disconnected’: Krauthammer Accuses Obama of Addressing Terrorism ‘Casually’ Video.***Via RCP:

Lehman: Clueless Obama [Robert Costa]

After watching President Obama’s remarks on national security this afternoon, John Lehman, the secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration and a member of the 9/11 Commission, tells National Review Online that, “frankly, I’m pissed off.”

“President Obama just doesn’t get it,” says Lehman. “I don’t think he has a clue. It’s all pure spin. He’s ignoring key issues and taking respectable professionals like John Brennan and turning them into hacks and shills. It’s beyond contempt.”

“The president has ignored the 9/11 Commission’s report,” says Lehman. “This whole idea that we can fix things by jumping higher and faster is ridiculous. The fact is that the system worked just like we said it would work if the president failed to give the Director of National Intelligence the tools he needs: it’s bloated, bureaucratic, layered, and stultified.”

“President Obama continues to totally ignore one of the important thrusts of our 9/11 recommendations, which is that you have to approach counterterrorism as a multiagency intelligence issue, and not as a law-enforcement issue. He’s made a lot of commission’s members angry for dismissing our report and ignoring key recommendations.” Obama, he adds, has taken a “lawyer-like, politically-correct approach” to national security issues like terrorist watchlists and no-fly lists. “You got to blame the president for enforcing the politically-correct and legalistic policies that led to these failures.”

In other news:

Gov. Pat Quinn says violent offenders were released early from prison under a non-publicized, money-saving program because his corrections chief went rogue.

Quinn told the Daily Herald editorial board Friday that he "told him repeatedly" that he did not want violent criminals released early.

"In carrying out that plan, he didn't follow my directives," Quinn said.

But Quinn isn't going to fire Michael Randle, the head of the Illinois Department of Corrections whom he appointed in June.

Instead, Quinn added a top-level employee to work under Randle to vet every early-release case to be sure violent offenders are not set free before serving their sentence. Quinn said he hired veteran Chicago Police Department executive Michael McCotter rather than fire Randle because Randle knows he made a mistake.

McCotter's salary will be $115,000, according to the governor's office.

Beyond contempt.

Ramirez cartoon.

More. Michael Barone: How Obama is failing to keep us safe: "

He was singing like a canary, then we charged him in civilian proceedings, he got a lawyer and shut up," Slade Gorton, a member of the 9/11 Commission that investigated the Sept 2001 terror attacks on the US, told The Sunday Telegraph.

"I find it incomprehensible that this administration is treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue. The president has finally said that we are at war with al-Qaeda. Well, if this is a war, then Abdulmutallab should be treated as a combatant not a criminal."

More. Mark Steyn: But We’re Still Gonna Kill You. Isolated extremists? This “war” is about the intersection of Islam and the West.

Related post: The Absurd Obama