Posted on 08/30/2006 12:39:58 AM PDT by Giant Conservative
What is it about Michael Chertoff, President Bush's unqualified, unsuccessful, unrepentant and yet still unreplaced Homeland Security Secretary?
After (1) bungling the federal response to Hurricane Katrina by treating FEMA as an unwanted step-child in a massive Homeland Security Department focused on the War on Terror and (2) hamstringing former FEMA Director Michael D. Brown by officially putting him in charge and then tethering him to Baton Rouge when he needed to be in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coat, it was Mr. Chertoff who should have resigned, but did not.
For an encore, Mr. Chertoff ran Homeland Security in such a way that he supposedly did not have a clue that Portgate would explode promptly after approval of the Dubai Ports World deal was announced, even though (1) the Democrats and their media allies obviously have a strategy of blaming President Bush no matter what, (2) the dangerous political ramifications of the deal should have been obvious, and (3) routinely announcing approval without having carefully prepared both the American people and Congress foreseeavly would allow the Democrats to do what should have been impossible for them: make the President look weak and incompetent and themselves strong and competent on the President's signature issue, national security.
President Bush should have requested Mr. Chertoff's resignation and fired him if it was not forthcoming immediately. After Hurricane Katrina. And after Portgate. As a Homeland Security Secretary, Mr. Chertoff is a catastrophe. This is what happens when the President goes with a nominee favored by Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York.
What is more important, responding as expeditiously as possible to a national disaster or maintaining plausible deniability? President Harry Truman is remembered and respected for saying, "The buck stops here." Does President Bush want to be remembered for saying, "In my administration, the buck never reached me, or reached me too late"? I surely hope not!
Why is President Bush so protective and forgiving toward Mr. Chertoff (the only United States Attorney kept on by former President Clinton)? And how long can he, America and Republicans stand it?
Continue reading this article below
Since his appointment as Homeland Security Czar, Mr. Chertoff has become President Bush's personal albatross.
Albatross: "something that causes persistent deep concern or anxiety"; "something that greatly hinders accomplishment"; 'encumbrance".
Doug Ireland, a progressive, in "Mike Chertoff's Dirty Little Secrets: Bush's New Homeland and Security Czar, published on January 12, 2005, presciently lamented Mr. Chertoff's appointment and smartly speculated that Mr. Chertoff was trying to use the appointment as a stepping stone to the United States Supreme Court. [MUCH better now Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. than Mr. Chertoff, a former federal appellate judge who served briefly with the much more judicially experienced Justice Alito, and whose intemperate remarks about a sensible Alito dissent was seized upon by the anti-Alitoists and exacerbated the problems of those supporting Justice Alito's confirmation.)
Mr. Ireland's position: "Why would Chertoff give up a lifetime seat on the federal bench to take a job in the hornet’s nest of problems that is the DHS? According to a top Jersey Democratic pol who knows Chertoff well, Chertoff--described as being 'as cold-blooded as they come'-- has a personal agenda that includes becoming U.S. Attorney General and, eventually, grabbing a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. But there’s a problem for Chertoff with conservative Republicans--he happens to be pro-choice. So, taking the DHS job is Chertoff’s way to 'make his bones,' as they say in Jersey, and grab headlines as a hard-line persecutor of 'the towel-heads' to please the right and neutralize his abortion stance."
Mr. Ireland's description of Mr. Chertoff's Homeland Security Secretary appointment: "as political an appointment as one can imagine--especially for those who know the arcana of politics in New Jersey, where Chertoff was U.S. Attorney, and where his naming to the DHS job caused jaws to drop." Because: Mr. Chertoff, as New Jersey's U.S. Attorney, was "a political attack dog..., indicting and convicting a raft of Democratic officeholders," but not "his big buddy, Bob 'The Torch' Torricelli, forced to resign his U.S. Senate seat from Sopranoland in a major corruption scandal."
Mr. Ireland's disconcerting example of Mr. Chertoff's poor judgment: "Nick Acocella, editor of the respected insider newsletter New Jersey Politifax, recalls that, at the height of the Torricelli scandal, and while Chertoff was U.S. Attorney, he saw The Torch and Chertoff together at a South Jersey Jewish banquet where they embraced and huddled intimately 'twins separated at birth.' One would have thought a federal prosecutor would have kept his distance from a target of criminal investigations that were making daily headlines in the Jersey press."
Why did President Bush appoint Mr. Chertoff as Homeland Security Secretary?
Mr. Ireland's answer: "Chertoff has zero experience in running anything remotely resembling DHS, a mammoth with 180,000 employees and 22 federal agencies under its umbrella. He was picked for two reasons: his political loyalty to Bush (he won’t go off the reservation on his own as Tom Ridge did) and the fact that he’s already been confirmed by the Senate thrice, so he has no hidden Kerik-like problems and will sail through with little or no opposition from the spineless Democrats (he’s already been endorsed by Sens. Chuck Schumer and Joe Lieberman for the DHS job)."
President Bush reaped the whirlwind for appointing the inexperienced, pro-abortion Chertoff as Homeland Security Secretary. And America did too.
Mr. Ireland: "According to New Jersey pro-life leaders, Chertoff favors abortion on demand. The Seattle Catholic describes Chertoff as 'militantly pro-abortion'."
Mr. President, you need (and America needs) a new Homeland Security Secretary. A "compassionate conservative." Now.
We have to get over this ridiculous litmus testing of people on issues that have nothing to do with the jobs they're being appointed to. I'd never want a pro-abort person at HHS or something like that, but in this case it's of no importance.
It goes to ethics. Why would you want someone who supports murdering babies in any high level govt. job? Did you even read the article? Chertoff is using this position as a stepping stone to get appointed attorney general and then a nomination to the SC.
Like it or not, many otherwise quality people aren't pro-life. If the best guy for a job not involving abortion is available, I'm taking him. I guess I'm ethically challenged because I don't ask my plumber or the grocer their positions on abortion, but it doesn't matter. neither does working to defend against terrorists.
I did read the article, and the whole idea is laughable. The writer practically has Chertoff twirling his mustache and laughing "MUwahahahahahahaHAAAA!" This Machiavellian "First I get Homeland Security, THEN I trick Bush into making me AG (when is Gonsalez leaving?) THEN I get on the SCOTUS!" Where's all this coming from? I see zero evidence that Bush intends to put him on the SCOTUS, but this writer has created this Oliver Stone-ian theory, and apparently some are falling for it. Not me.
Same pattern.
"Who cares where the Homeland Security chief stands on abortion?"
Yes, I agree with you two. That is just a wacky non-sequitor in this article. The focus on corrupt NJ, etc., administrative inexperience, all that stuff makes sense. The fact that he is "pro-choice" assuming that is true, since the author merely asserts and does not prove it, has nothing to do with DHS or any other job Chertoff has had. And let's not forget, Hillary! hates him, so he can't be all bad.
It only matters if he has approved the position of Aborting Terrorists on demand.
Chertoff is Bush's little "yes man" open borders hack. This guy is a waste of taxpayer dollars. How much are we paying him anually to keep the borders wide open? He should be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail to Mexico.
He was D'Amato's counsel in the original Senate Watergate hearings and did a great job of exposing the shennigans around the newly defunct Vince Foster's office, among a lot of other things that the MSM didn't want people to pay attention to. Against the leech-worm BenVeniste, he also appeared a paragon of virtue.
Contrast New Orleans with Mississippi, and you'll see exactly where the problem was, one year ago.
Chertoff is completely ineffective and inspires zero confidence in me. He is not the type of leader needed for DHS. All talk--no action. The southern border is a classic case of non-action.
A year later FEMA still has not done a credible job in post disaster rebuilding or oversight of funds and projects.
Look back at 1942-1943 and the efforts that were made organize resources to meet a threat to this country. Now compare to 2001-2006. Something is still wrong with DHS.
And, for the record, I hate the word "Homeland". That word has NEVER been used in the American lexicon for naming government groups, and has Nazi/Communist connotations. The words "National" or "American" should have been used. I don't know why the President chose "Homeland". We don't have colonies or such that a distinction about the "Homeland" had to be made.
Rihght on.
While I agree that Chertoff's position on abortion is a non-issue in the overall scheme of things, the author's point that Chertoff is a joke and his appointment is W's responsibility, appears to escape many posting replies to this article.
This is NOT an isolated incident and there appears to be a pattern of inept, PC, useless and of questionable conservative beliefs in so many of W's appointments.
There is Minetta (a far-left Clinton wackjob) which Bush kept on at DOT for 6 years and actually fined airlines for "profiling;" then Mueller (at FBI) who "ordered" some of his Agents to attend Muzzie sensitivity classes recently, sponsored by CAIR; then this idiot Chertoff, who is about as useless in protecting our borders as t*ts on a bull and one has to begin questioning W's choices for cabinet appointments.
Yes, I voted for W (twice) but I am very disillusioned and disappointed with so many of his policies, other than WOT, and sometimes wonder if he is getting bad advice, or is not a true conservative, at heart?
Regardless, whatever we think of Chertoff, Mueller et al., as this author points out there is but one person responsible and one person who can make changes, if he so desires:
Contrast Mississippi with Louisiana. FEMA dispenses funds, the locals are responsible for rebuilding.
I hate the word "Homeland".
I agree! Reminds me of the "Thousand points of Light" his father was so proud of. The skeptical among us can see where that is leading.
Excellent distinction, sink.
Mississippi has not wallowed in self pity and Bush-bashing, but has, even from the beginning of the post Katrina period,under Barbour, just worked to get the job done. All we hear about is New Orleans.
But even in Mississippi, progress has not emanated from FEMA, but from private, local and state efforts.
I'm glad someone else has that reaction; I share it. It is not part of our lexicon, and the closest I can come to it in a national language is the German term "Heimat". And we all know where THAT got us.
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