Great Moments in GOP Shamelessness Posted by Michael Cohen

Generally here at DA I have tried to shy away from getting too overly political in my blogging, but the response of some Republicans to the alleged al Qaeda Xmas attack has dragged me out of my partisan slumber.

First we have what Steve Benen (the nicest man in the liberal blogosphere) decries as the cravenness of Pete Hoekstra, who is the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. Apparently he is now using the attempted attack to raise campaign contributions for his gubernatorial run in Michigan. Steve sums it up well:

Just how pathetic does a politician have to be to try to raise money off the attempted murder of hundreds of innocent Americans? Just how desperate does that politician have to be to see a plot to blow up an airplane over American soil and think, "You know, maybe I can exploit this to pick up a few checks."

Remember when it was considered unseemly to run campaign ads that evoked 9/11? Not that any of this should be a surprise since manipulating the specter of international terrorism has been part of the GOP political palette for the past 8 years (See: 2002, 2004, 2006 elections).

Next we have Jim "Waterloo" Demint who has for several months now been blocking the appointment of Errol Southers to be the next TSA Administrator because . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . Demint is concerned that the TSA might allow their workers to unionize. Now keep in mind, two Senate committees have already pushed forward Southers nomination, in a bipartisan manner. But clearly that is not enough for Jim Demint. 

Now here's the funny thing about this. In 2002, Democrats held up passage of legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security for fear that workers there would not be able to unionize. The GOP then proceeded to run campaign ads in the 2002 election calling Democrats soft on security and unpatriotic because their stance was delaying creation of DHS. How is what Jim DeMint is doing today any different? It's not. But here's the difference, Jim DeMint has no shame whatsoever. Check out his comments this Sunday on the issue:

When we formed the airport security system, we realized we could not use collective bargaining because of that need to be flexible. Yet that appears now to be the top priority of the administration. And this whole thing should remind us, Chris, that the soft talk about engagement, closing Gitmo, these things are not gonna appease the terrorists. They’re gonna keep coming after us, and we can’t have politics as usual in Washington, and I’m afraid that’s what we’ve got right now with airport security.

So here we have it; the Administration is more focused on collective bargaining than stopping terrorism . . . thus putting American lives in danger. It's not the Senator who is preventing a new TSA chief from taking office because he doesn't like unions. And if you believe that "they're gonna keep coming after us" how can you possibly justify holding up the appointment of the head of the TSA?

And then we find out from Politico that Republicans are hardly dipped in gold when it comes to homeland security:

Republicans have cast votes against the key TSA funding measure that the 2010 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security contained, which included funding for the TSA, including for explosives detection systems and other aviation security measures. 

The conference bill included more than $4 billion for "screening operations," including $1.1 billion in funding for explosives detection systems, with $778 million for buying and installing the systems.

Among those voting against this bill - Pete Hoekstra.

Oh and now Pat Buchanan in debating Spencer channels Michael Goldfarb in arguing that Abdulmutallab should be denied pain medication in order to get intelligence information out of him. Keep in mind, even if we are at war with al Qaeda (as Buchanan suggests) we still wouldn't deny medical care to enemy soldiers.

I wonder though if Michael Goldfarb and Pat Buchanan were as outraged when Ahmed Ressam, Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui were prosecuted by the Bush Administration in federal court and given due process under the US criminal justice system. I suppose the fact that our criminal system convicted all three men and in some cases actually got actionable intelligence out of them is not relevant to the conversation. After all there is just another election ten months away.

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