NOT SO FAST - AT 9:57 A.M. ET:  A former British spy chief gives a guardedly optimistic view of the battle with Al Qaeda.  From Bloomberg:

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The al-Qaeda terrorist network may be losing its capacity to carry out large-scale attacks in the U.S. and U.K. because of improved security, Richard Dearlove, former chief of Britain’s MI6 spy agency, said.

“It could be the movement is past the high point in its ability to mount mass-casualty events in the West,” Dearlove, 64, said in an interview in London late yesterday. “It’s because the bar has been raised, the door has been shut.”

Dearlove served as chief of MI6, known officially as the Secret Intelligence Service, from 1999 to 2004, a period that included the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. “There is much more international security cooperation,” he said, though “the threat is not completely removed.”

COMMENT:  If true, there are two men who deserve our thanks on this Thanksgiving - George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  And yet, their names are hardly mentioned.

Obama has, in fairness, kept in place a number of the security measures that Bush introduced.  But the image of weakness around him can only encourage Al Qaeda to grow again, and the decision to try the mastermind of 9-11 in a civilian court in New York, as if he'd done some shoplifting, is absurd, and flashes a pre 9-11 mentality.

We've made progress against Al Qaeda, and largely defeated it in Iraq.  But that progress can be reversed through indecision and trendiness.  The ball, and it isn't a basketball, is in Mr. Obama's court.

November 26, 2009