BuzzFlash
presents Capitol Buzz
by Anonymous
Homeland Security Hacks
Capitol
Buzz: From Capitol Hill to BuzzFlash.com
by
Anonymous
June 12, 2002
It is only my second column, so I guess it is time to follow the lead of other Washington columnists and make a bold prediction. The Department of Homeland Security will not be authorized this year and it will be viewed as a major legislative misstep by the Bush Administration. The tempered and bipartisan skepticism you saw on the Sunday talking head shows masks the noise that echoed across Capitol Hill after the President's speech: a collective guffaw.
Let's set the scene. Colleen Rowley was poised to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee and a leak war had broken out between the CIA and FBI in the Washington Post and New York Times. Yes, CIA, you did a better job than the FBI in connecting the dots before 9/11. But could you set your sights a little higher than that? Like, say, for example, matching the competence of the INS? And, lo and behold, a blockbuster announcement from the Pretender in Chief: after badmouthing Senator Joseph Lieberman's bill to set up a new agency of Homeland Security and threatening to veto the supplemental appropriations bill for providing funding for such an agency -- the President had a wonderful new idea: let's create a Homeland Security Agency!
And they said Al Gore had no core convictions.
The tick tock stories (an inside the beltway term for news accounts that give the minute by minute details of how something happened) over the weekend lauded the disciplined and discreet team who gave birth to this 300 pound baby: Andy, Karen and Karl. Some folks just shouldn't procreate.
The wonderfully thought out plan has every "i" dotted and "t" crossed. The FBI and CIA, the entities who screwed up the most pre-9/11, would be left untouched. The Federal Emergency and Management Agency, whose primary mission is repairing damage caused by tornadoes, floods and hurricanes, and is generally regarded as one of the most competent agencies, would be moved to the new House of Tom Ridge or Rudy Giluliani. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, in the midst of a historic restructuring, would be uprooted. Along with it would come jurisdiction over federal pest control and, therefore, the eradication of such notorious terrorists as cockroaches and boll weevils.
Get this: the Administration's helpful chart shows a whopping 133 different departments tasked with Homeland Security in the current structure. Know about how many would be efficiently consolidated in the new Department? Thirty. Yeah, that'll help.
And the wonderful antagonism from the White House to Congress. How many times have you heard Bushies talk over the past few days about "turf wars"? Notice the helpful little chart in its big booklet that showed all those pesky congressional committees who have jurisdiction over aspects of homeland security and the calls for a Special Committee to take the whole kahuna? That drove congressional Republicans over the edge. They can't believe that the cowboys from Austin who rode into town less than two years ago don't understand that they have been working on these issues for decades and might have some expertise to contribute. The guffaw is being drowned out by Republican versus Republican acrimony.
Misconceived as damage control. Misdrafted by political hacks. Mishandled
by White House spinners. I'm telling you - this thing is in trouble. Remember
you heard it here first.
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Who am I?
Let me introduce myself. I am a partisan Democrat who has something to say. And as a senior staffer on Capitol Hill, I have a perspective that may be different than the one provided by the mainstream media. But, due to my position, I run the risk of my views being attributed to my employer. So, I offer this anonymously-written weekly column and speak only for myself.
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