Here is an interesting fact the internet has pulled up. On December 28, 2009, President Obama made his first public comments about the attempted bombing on Christmas day – 3 days after the incident.

On December 28, 2001, President Bush made his first public comments about Richard Reid’s failed bombing attempt. That was 7 days after the attempt, which was on December 21, 2001.

It took Bush more than twice as long to respond as Obama and somehow the right thinks Obama took too long? It’s just another example of the right playing politics with the very deadly act of terrorism. Here’s another:

Hours after Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee and a Michigan gubernatorial candidate, sent out an email solicitation bashing “weak-kneed liberals” for their response to an attempted attack on a Detroit-bound airliner, the DNC went to work.

Remember within hours of this incident Hoekstra declared it a “terrorist attack”, which was really funny because the parallels between Christmas of this year and Richard Reid are so similar. The only real difference is one involved shoes and the other involved underwear. Hoekstra never said Reid was a “terrorist attack”.

Perhaps it’s even time for a little reminder about how dangerous Pete Hoekstra is to national security. Here’s Rachel Maddow back in November talking about Hoekstra leaking out information about how the government received data on Maj. Hassan, the Ft. Hood shooter:

Pete Hoekstra is the terrorists best friend and this countries worst enemy – including the right. He is the very reason that people trust Democrats more than Republicans on national security, something that never used to happen. That is because people like Pete Hoekstra, Dick Cheney and a handful of other Republicans don’t take terrorism seriously. Instead they use it as a political tool. Kind of a shame considering terrorism by it’s very definition is a political tool.

Until the Republicans are willing to take terrorism seriously, no one will take them seriously. A good start will be by the GOP telling Hoekstra that he in no way represents their views on national security and they actually view him as a threat to it. Be serious about terrorism for once and then we can have an actual conversation on how to keep this country safe and secure.