WASHINGTON — Turns out Hillary Rodham Clinton was right all along.
During the nastiest battle of the entire 2008 presidential race, she aired an alarming television commercial warning voters that they would come to regret nominating Barack Obama to occupy the White House.
If — in a national security crisis — the “red phone” rang at 3 a.m., the ad intoned, Obama would not hear it.
Or he would fail to answer it.
Or he would be on vacation.
In any case, an Obama White House would so diminish the threat of terrorism that the government’s focus would shift away from the harsh and determined tactics used to protect the homeland.
Instead, Obama would turn his attention to becoming more popular in the world and stress negotiations over hardball tactics.
This attitude from the commander in chief would trickle down to every corner of the federal government responsible for national security.
Obama lashed out at Clinton, dismissing her and accusing her of desperation and playing upon people’s fears.
“Sen. Obama says that if we talk about national security in this campaign, we’re trying to scare people,” replied Clinton, appropriately mystified.
Well, yesterday those chickens came home to roost.
On a day when the administration desperately hoped to calm America’s fears that a soft-headed, bumbling raft of politically correct peaceniks had taken over and fallen asleep at the national security switch, there wasn’t much to see in the White House other than bungling of previous bungles.
These guys could not even settle on a time for Obama to address the country without rescheduling four times.
When he finally did speak — in the late afternoon — Obama offered a crushing analysis.
Evaluating all the ways in which his administration failed leading up to the attempted crotch-bombing of a US airliner on Christmas Day, Obama declared it a “systemic failure.”
Yes, indeed.
Far more terrifying was how basic and fundamental these breakdowns were.
In the future, Obama said, “we must follow the leads that we get.”
You think?
“We can’t sit on information that could protect the American people.”
Seriously?
“We must do better in keeping dangerous people off of airplanes.”
You don’t say!
Is anyone else feeling a little less than reassured right about now?
Not that any of this should have come as much of a surprise.
It is certainly not the first piece of evidence that Obama would rather be liked in the world than pursue the tactics proven to beat this evil and unceasing enemy.
Never will be forgotten Obama’s trip to Cairo last year to address the Muslim world, when he said that he believes it is “part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”
Forget for a moment that such folly appears nowhere in the American president’s job description.
If you have time for such nonsense, then you are not spending enough time thinking about how to thwart this enemy.
But it is not like we weren’t warned by Hillary Clinton.
There was, however, a glint of good news yesterday. Obama invited former President Bill Clinton into the White House for an unexpected private chat.
Let’s hope Obama asked him where the red phone is and how to answer it.