Uh-oh:
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano avoids mention of terrorism or 9/11 in remarks prepared for her first congressional testimony since taking office, signaling a sharp change in tone from her predecessors.
Napolitano is the first homeland security secretary to drop the term “terror” and “vulnerability” from remarks prepared for delivery to the House Homeland Security Committee, according to a copy obtained by The Associated Press.
Tom Ridge, who headed the agency when it was launched in 2003, mentioned terrorism 11 times in his prepared statement at his debut before the oversight committee in 2003. And in 2005 Michael Chertoff, the second secretary, mentioned terrorism seven times, according to an AP analysis of the prepared testimonies.
Napolitano, a former Arizona governor, instead charts a course in very different terms than Chertoff, who used law enforcement and military jargon – “intelligence,” “analysis,” “mission” – to describe the agency’s objectives.
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Napolitano’s prepared remarks also show her using the word “attacks” less than her predecessors. She is the first secretary to use a Capitol Hill debut to talk about hurricanes and disasters, a sign of the department’s evolving mission following Hurricane Katrina.
Napolitano is not alone in her departure from terror talk.
The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee doesn’t mention terrorism or 9/11 in his prepared remarks for Wednesday’s hearing either. Securing the borders, responding to natural disasters, ensuring transportation safety, protecting critical infrastructure and administering grants are the priorities, Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson says.
It’s all too easy, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, to blame the somnolence of the Clinton Administration for allowing the terror threat to grow unchecked; the failures of the 1990s, after all, were pervasive, systemic and bipartisan, and they continued in the first nine months of the Bush Administration. But today’s Democrats have no such excuse for lapsing back into complacency.
Moe Lane
Dan McLaughlin
Neil Stevens
Daniel Horowitz
Phoenix the kidnap capital of the US
NickDeringer (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 9:40AM EST (link)This is stunning considering the rampant invasion of her former state by illegals and drug cartels. Are we talking cronyism here?
We are sprinting back to a September 10th mind set.
NickDeringer
The Obama Cabinet philosophy? "Ignore it and it'll go away" [nt]
Bill S (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 9:44AM EST (link)“It’s such a fine line between stupid, and clever.” – David St. Hubbins
I know this is anathema
willtenn Wednesday, February 25th at 10:10AM EST (link)But I suspect people are tiring of HEARING “it” and are more conerned with DOING something about “it”.
Well put
NotSoBlueStater (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 10:16AM EST (link)This, to me, is the greatest danger of BDS: That simply taking a contrary position to whatever the Bush Administration did is somehow automatically better policy.
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The Conservative creed has never offered a life of ease without effort. Democracy is not for such people. Self-government is for those men and women who have learned to govern themselves. – Margaret Thatcher
How on earth
red4ever (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 11:07AM EST (link)can a Homeland Security chief NOT mention 9/11 and terrorism? If not for 9/11 and terrorism, that job would not even exist. It is the raison d’etre for creating the department.
Never mind the fact that Homeland Security can do nothing to prevent natural disasters. FEMA should never have been made part of DHS. It should have stayed independent instead of adding another layer of bureacracy to relief efforts.
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
Dante
Right! Like the Dems don't always
johnt Wednesday, February 25th at 11:19AM EST (link)downplay military/defense efforts, where cuts are dividends, the kind you don’t receive in the mail.
This is at least an indicator of a pervasive attitude of the past several years. Rather than waste time I will simply put it as the Helen Thomas approach to foreign & military policy.
And I would not bet my liver on the possibility of firm action at our southern border, where it seems Mexico is about to explode. That may not be an altogether bad thing as at least for a short while we won’t have to listen to the usual righteous lunacy directed at proponents of border enforcement, the “nativist/racist/redneck” crap.
“a man’s admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him”. Tocqueville
Homeland security was a bad idea
DGaines (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 11:58AM EST (link)because its only a matter of time until it morphs into national law enforcement.
Rule 1: Government programs never go away.
Rule 2: They always become more intrusive over time.
Just wait til the Thousands Standing Around have
Achance (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 12:23PM EST (link)SEIU buttons on their collars, and you know that allowing TSA to unionize is high up on the priority list. I’m sure the bidding is lively for which union gets 50K new members. Under the National Labor Relations Act it would be illegal for them to be in any union that represented any kind of employee other than security (guard) employees, but that prohibition doesn’t exist in the federal bargaining scheme for its own employees.
In Vino Veritas
All of the underlying national law enforcement machinery existed prior
6eorge Jetson (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 12:45PM EST (link)to the creation of the Homeland Security agency and the passage of the Patriot Act (in my govt layman/systems architecture professional opinion). However, turf wars (which to me was the major/sole justification for Homeland Security) and process dogma (addressed by the patriot act) enabled the (terrorist viewpoint) success of 9/11, in spite of the fact that the US had captured a key planner along with significant details on his laptop prior to 9/11.
By downplaying the importance of terrorism, Napolitano & Obama will create an environment where those turf wars will once again thrive. And then, in agreement with DGaines, I have to ask, what’s the point of Homeland Security if the key benefit is going to disappear?
Oh, I suspect this administration can find a use
Achance (Diary) Wednesday, February 25th at 12:49PM EST (link)for some of those powers and employees, enemies of all sorts, you know.
In Vino Veritas
As a long time Arizonan, I can tell you
kchand Wednesday, February 25th at 12:03PM EST (link)Janeohh is a snake. She’s more trial lawyer than administrator. Her gimmicks and legal maneuvers left AZ with the largest PER CAPITA deficit in the country.
WATCH OUT!
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The ‘N’ word is November! Nov 6, 2012 will be the next cleansing.