White House plays Flight 253 blame game

The Prowler reports at the American Spectator:

[A]s it became clear internally that the Administration had suffered perhaps its most embarrassing failure in the area of national security, senior Obama White House aides, including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and new White House counsel Robert Bauer, ordered staff to begin researching similar breakdowns -- if any -- from the Bush Administration. "The idea was that we'd show that the Bush Administration had had far worse missteps than we ever could," says a staffer in the counsel's office. "We were told that classified material involving anything related to al Qaeda operating in Yemen or Nigeria was fair game and that we'd declassify it if necessary."
The White House, according to the source, is in full defensive spin mode. Other administration sources also say a flurry of memos were generated on December 26th, 27th, and 28th, which developed talking points about how Obama's decision to effectively shut down the Homeland Security Council (it was merged earlier this year into the National Security Council, run by National Security Adviser James Jones) had nothing to do with what Obama called a "catastrophic" failure on Christmas Day.
"This White House doesn't view the Northwest [Airlines] failure as one of national security, it's a political issue," says the White House source. "That's why Axelrod and Emanuel are driving the issue." . . .

Read the whole thing. Disgusting.

UPDATE: "White House to Critics: Stop Blaming Us While We Look For a Way To Blame Bush."

Rahm Emanuel: 'F*** you, moonbats!'

"Intentionality," so to speak:

Turn off MSNBC. Tune out Howard Dean and Keith Olbermann. The White House has its liberal wing in hand on health care, says White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
"There are no liberals left to get" in the Senate, Emanuel said in an interview, shrugging off some noise from the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) that a few liberals might bolt over the compromises made with conservative Democrats. . . .
The comments may not endear the powerful White House chief of staff to liberal activists, furious that Senate Democratic leaders, at Emanuel's urging, cut a deal with Sen. Joe Lieberman to drop a federally run insurance policy option, then eliminate a Medicare buy-in proposal.
"I don’t think the White House recognizes how much trouble they're in," said one former Democratic official this morning. "I think they're miscalaculating what's happening with progressives and the left. They feel like they're being taken for granted."

"One former Democratic official" (wild guess: Robert Reich) is on the money here. The online Left hates Joe Lieberman like God hates sin, and any deal that brings Lieberman aboard is automatically a poison pill for the DKos/Firedoglake crowd.

Allahpundit says he has "no reference point for what we're seeing on the left right now." Oh, but we do: The Left's mood now very much resembles the way conservatives felt when John McCain tried to shove amnesty down our throats. Firedoglake headline:

It’s Not Governing from the Center Just Because You Talk Out of Both Sides of Your Mouth

The Left is pissed off that Democratic leaders are playing the same phony P.R. game we saw Republicans play when they were in the majority: "Pass something -- anything -- just so we can say we've passed 'reform.'"

Many conservatives may be tempted to agree with Emanuel that the "progressive netroots community" will roll over and do as they're told. But you knew things were getting sideways when Glenn Greenwald started making sense and then MoveOn.org said "Kill the Bill."

We're on a one-way train to Crazyville, and there's no telling what happens next. Meanwhile, enjoy this MSNBC shout-fest between Dylan Rattigan and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz: