A formula for more San Bernardinos and more Bostons and perhaps another 9/11

Jim Geraghty writes in National Review,

The short version of the GOP message for 2016 is simple and direct: We’ve tried the Obama approach to counter-terrorism and it isn’t keeping you safe.

The threat of al-Qaeda has been replaced with the greater, more varied, more sophisticated threat of ISIS. The threat grew worse in part because the Obama administration didn’t want to see the threat, didn’t want to acknowledge the threat was growing, didn’t want to admit its policies weren’t working, and didn’t want to break its politically correct worldview. We don’t look at the social media of immigrants and those entering the country -- after learning of all of the snooping on American citizens in the domestic-surveillance programs! If you’ve visited Iraq and Syria in the past five years, you can still qualify for a program that allows visa-free entry to this country. Why? The San Bernardino shooter passed three background checks from DHS counterterrorism screening, and yet the administration refuses to consider pausing the Syrian-refugee program, even though they cited that screening as why they could handle the threat.

Add it all up, and we have a formula for more San Bernardinos and more Bostons and perhaps another 9/11. No Democrat will ever give up the philosophical underpinning that they’re the tolerant and accepting ones, and that their foes are driven by hateful xenophobia. The country needs to change direction from the Obama administration’s path, and no Democrat can be counted on to do that.

Read more here.