U.S. "woefully" inadequate to respond to attack?

Recently Bob Graham, chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism and former Florida Senator, has decided to publicly announce how vulnerable he believes the US is to responding to any major terrorist attacks. Mr. Graham’s Commission gave the Obama administration an “F” in the area of responding to a bio-terror attack. In an interview on NPR Mr. Graham’s co-chair former senator Jim Talent, when speaking about the terrorists, went as far as to say that “Eventually, they're going to defeat the intel apparatus”. That is a pretty scary statement when its coming from someone whose job it is to determine our safety and security. That statement also begs the question, is someone who has seemingly already admitted defeat the right man for the job? I want someone who has some optimism and isn’t convinced our intel is bound to fail, believing our intelligence is going to fail isn’t a winning strategy and sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yeah we might get attacked if Sen. Talent is one of the individuals in charge of preventing it.
This whole ordeal makes you wonder if this information being broadcast all over the media is a good idea? Maybe we could send this embarrassing report card to the head of al-Qaida, or any other organization who may want to attack us? I feel like we’re saying “Hey Mr. Terrorist, if you were thinking about attacking us, nows the time”. I don’t think we should be telegraphing how weak we are around the world. It seems like this information should be discussed with the president and security experts privately so they could do something about it, not broadcast over all the major news networks letting the whole world know that we wouldn’t be able to respond to an attack.

NPR Interview
CNN:US gets "F" on bioterror response

Max Kruse
POS2001/075366
Tu 7:00-9:45

Survey Results

The results of the survey we took the first night of class are below:

What is your political party?
Democrat 20
Republican 7
Don't know 4
Independent 1
Libertarian 1
Libertarian Green 1
Liberal 1

What is your ideology?
Don't know 25
Liberal 4
Conservative 1
Moderate 1
Socialist 1
Libertarian 1
Laissez-Faire 1
Issue stances 1
Realist 1

Who did you vote for in the presidential election?
Barack Obama 18
John McCain 8
Didn't vote 5
Ron Paul 1
Ralph Nader 1
Not old enough 1
No answer 1

Socialist, Republican, voted for McCain

Do you approve of the job Barack Obama is doing as president?
Yes 13
No 8
Somewhat 7
Don't know 7

Who is the governor of Florida?
Charlie Crist 13
Don't know 12
*Charlie Crist 5
Charlie Chris 3
Charlie Crisp 1
Jeb Bush 1

Name Florida's two senators.
Don't know 27
*Bill Nelson 3
Mel Martinez 2
Bernie Sanders (VT) 1
Marco Rubio 1
Brown 1
Bob Graham 1

Name your local representative.
Don't know 30
*Allen Boyd 3
Al Lawson 1

Name one other world leader.
Don't know 18
*Raul Castro, Cuba 4
Hu Jintao, China 1
Ho Chi Min, North Korea 1
Hugo Chavez, Chile 1
*Hugo Chavez, Venezuela 1
Nicolas Sarkozy, France 1
Pope Benedict 1
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti 1
*Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran 1
*Queen Elizabeth, UK 1
*Dmitry Medvedev, Russia 1
Vicente Fox, Mexico 1
*Gordon Brown, UK 1
Su Jon Kim, South Korea 1

Where do you get your news from?
Television 12
Internet 8
Newspaper 4
Magazines 2
News 2
Radio 1

Family 5
Friends 2
Don't know 1
Anywhere 1
Don't 1

CNN 15
Fox 5
MSNBC 5
Tallahassee Democrat 4
USA Today 3
Huffington Post 3
CSpan 2
The Daily Show 2
Time 2
NPR 2
Facebook 2
CBS 1
The Onion 1
Salon 1
Popurls.com 1
New York Times 1
YouTube 1
Politico 1
Drudge Report 1
Reddit 1
Washington Post 1
AP 1
MSN 1
AOL 1
ABC 1

What are the most important issues facing America today?
Economy 20
Health care 14
War 5
Iraq 4
Debt 3
Education 2
War on drugs 2
Terrorism 2
Undeclared wars 1
Loss of civil liberties 1
Gay marriage 1
Marriage 1
Military budget 1
Corporate monopolies 1
Crime 1
Number of black men incarcerated 1
Energy 1
Technology 1
Global warming 1
Gun rights 1
Taxes 1
Supreme Court nominations 1
Overactive legislation 1
Drinking age 1
Iran 1
Our missiles near Poland 1
Abortion 1
Don't know 1