So it begins

Senator Clinton has been out of the campaign trail in NH today with this gem:

“I don’t think it was by accident that Al Qaeda decided to test the new prime minister,” she said. “They watch our elections as closely as we do, maybe more closely than some of our fellows citizens do…. Let’s not forget you’re hiring a president not just to do what a candidate says during the election, you want a president to be there when the chips are down.”

Now the thing that first strikes me about this statement is that it sounds like it was crafted by Karl Rove, perhaps there was more to those reports about Bush advising the Senator than we thought.

The next thing that strikes me is her analogy to the UK transition from Prime Minister Blair to Brown, which coincided with the unraveling of a terrorist attack in London. The attack was discovered and dealt with by the UK security forces with little direction from the Prime Minister. I'm sure he was kept briefed and was ready for any development but there was a contingent of personnel at all levels, trained and ready for just such an occurence. His most prominent role in the event was in giving his nation's defiant response that they would not be threatened by such acts.

In the US our security apparatus, from the National Security Council and Joint Chiefs, down to the Police Officer out on beat are designed to provide some permanence in our security structure even in times of transition and crisis. I mean, the US security apparatus is designed with nuclear holocaust as it's worst case scenario, I think that we can endure another attack. Saying otherwise is somewhat of a denigration to our security forces at every level.

Having said all that I do agree that who is at the top of that apparatus is very important, and whoever the next President is they will have quite a challenge undoing the damage that the current Administration had done to it. In the end though, the most important role that a President plays as the head of that apparatus, is in being our nation's figurehead and in articulating our response as a nation. So if the worst should happen on January 20th 2009 or any day thereafter, I want the person who is deciding on that response to be someone who when they are put on the defensive will act with courage and wisdom to lift our nation back up and not someone who will react out of hubris and desperation to incite our worst fears. We've had enough of that.