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August 11, 2005
Weldon: National Security be damned.
Other bloggers and pundits who are smarter and whose work is much more read than mine have noted that the GOP smear machine attacks where the GOP are weakest. They would for example go after an opponent on his military service record while their candidate had no military service whatsoever.
The Republicans have demonstrated an immense ineptitude at national security. They absolutely suck at managing it.
Witness the fact that they keep cutting taxes while shipping containers go unchecked, our borders remain porous, airport security continues to be a joke, etc.
During campaigns they use national security issues against their opponent like a corked bat in Fenway....with Green Monster-like success, so far.
One of the more cynical (and dangerous) aspects of the Republican national security facade is their willingness to use it for political gain.
Most of us bloggy wonks are well aware of the Rovegate Scandal in which a CIA agent is outed to the press for political gain. Laura Rozen points to a lessor, if not just as politically ruthless, situation with a US Congressman:
One strange thing about this claim by Congressman Curt Weldon that he has defense intelligence sources who a year before 9/11 identified Mohammad Atta as a member of a Brooklyn al Qaeda cell is that, by some accident of fate, I was at a talk Weldon gave at the Heritage foundation back in 2002, where he was making the same claim and showing the same chart of the al Qaeda cells. (Start at around minute 24, minute 31 starts the claim, minute 33:33 is the chart). I even went up afterwards and asked if it would be possible to get a copy of the chart that accompanied his talk and that he's been showing recently, but it proved elusive. So why is this coming forward in a more prominent way only now? After all, the 911 commission had more than a year of hearings when it could have investigated these claims, and the commission's report has been out for more than a year now. I don't know the answer. But it's worth noting that The Hill reports today that Weldon hopes to use the August recess to secure the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Weldon has had this information for two years and he didn't give it to the 9/11 Commission to investigate? What possible reason could he have for holding on to crucial information like this...? Rozen hints at a juicy political opportunity.
If Weldon indeed held on to important 9/11 related information until an opportune moment to score an especially good committee Chairmanship, and is then rewarded with it, the Republican Party is worse off than I thought.
Rewarding a guy for witholding information that could have been used to better understand our failures in the lead up to 9/11?
National security be damned.
Posted by Carla at August 11, 2005 08:13 AM