Napolitano Must Go

My neck still hurts from reading the January 1, 2010 New York Times editorial "Why Didn't They See It," concerning our failure to find the bomb in Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's underwear. Nodding vigorously in agreement with such a surprisingly accurate analysis always hurts physically as much as it lifts intellectually. Well, maybe it doesn't lift intellectually so much as puff egotistically, since it merely confirms my own analysis. If it didn't agree with what I already thought, how else could I instantly have recognized its accuracy? Unless, of course, I saw it on Fox News.

The Times is correct in concluding that the government failed to connect the dots. Thanks to George W. Bush, we now are awash in dots. He, in fact, created a great wall of dots to protect us, except for the unfortunate incident on 9/11. But we can't blame him for that, because he hardly had time to clear the brush to prepare for construction of the wall. Many who voted for Barack Obama hoped that he was fired up and ready to connect the dots, reinforcing the great wall of protection. They were wrong.

Instead, he appointed Janet Napolitano, governor of Arizona, to be the Secretary of Homeland Security. Fox News has reported that 73% of Mexicans believe that Arizona is part of Mexico and that 68% of the remaining 49% believe that even though it is part of the United States, there are no restrictions on immigration in spite of the existence of the wall. Why the President thought that a governor who could not convince foreigners that her state was not part of their country could coordinate connection of the dots is not clear.

In spite of Ms. Napolitano's fecklessness, Abdulmutallab's plot went awry, altering both him and the outcome. If Ms. Napolitano were a police chief, Republicans, Democrats, and even Greens would question the sanity of anyone saying she should be fired for not preventing the near or even successful commission of a crime, which, in hindsight, appeared to be predictable. Ditto for a general not being able to avoid a battle.

But the security of the Homeland is different. Terrorist attacks against the Homeland are neither crimes nor acts of war, and at the same time they are crimes AND acts of war. Crimes scare us, especially when people like Willie Horton commit them. Acts of war scare us. Terrorist attacks therefore doubly scare us, since the relationship obviously is linear. 1+1=2. This is where connecting the dots comes in. The shortest distance between two points is a line. When we are doubly scared, failing to connect dots, thereby failing to head the terrorists off at the pass (Where is Ronald Reagan when we need him?) is something we cannot forgive.

To protect us, we need people who are able to draw lines. Where are these people? My best guess is the art world. Architects draw straight lines, but they use rulers, which places their true ability in doubt, even though I'd be willing to debate this fine point. It's time for Barack Obama to really get fired up. Let him take an imaginative leap, recognizing that since most of us can predict the past, it should not be so hard to find some among us who can simply turn around, look the other way, and predict the future by connecting the dots, something that we can expect neither military nor law enforcement people, much less politicians, to do. Since none have been very successful so far, why not turn to our artists and place them in charge of protecting us.

We never will be able to prevent all or even most crimes. In a conventional war, we cannot prevent all battles, otherwise, by definition, we would not be in a war. But we must prevent all terrorist attacks. We are Americans. We are afraid. Let us dare to be bold. Deploy the artists!