"[T]he Republicans, who predictably seized on the plot for political advantage by absurdly accusing Mr. Obama of being weak on national security."

I'm just noticing this NYT editorial from New Year's Day. It's not bad generally, but I just don't get the "absurdly." What's absurd about accusing Obama of being weak on national security?

I used to subscribe to the NYT and read it for at least an hour a day, paging through the whole thing. Now, I'm spending more and more time looking for opinion about American politics in the British papers. For example, the UK Telegraph has "Barack Obama is vulnerable on terror – and he knows it."

So, weakness on national security: too absurd to mention or something Obama knows all too well?

Now, that seems like a striking contradiction, but it can be said that the NYT and the UK Telegraph are talking about 2 different things that can both be true: 1. President Obama is actually very strong on national security, and 2. President Obama can be attacked on the issue of national security. 2 newspapers are taking 2 angles on Obama's problems with national security. The Telegraph is illustrating Obama's awareness of how he is being attacked as shown by the defensive remarks he has made. The NYT would like readers to jump to the opinion that only the bad people are questioning Obama on this issue.