Politics, Then Security

From IBD:
Posted 5/18/2006

Leadership: Offering more proof that Democrats can't be trusted in the war on terror, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wants to replace a moderate with a leftist as top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

The bipartisan 9-11 commission was harshly critical of frequent turnover on Congress' intelligence panels. "Few members of Congress have the broad knowledge of intelligence activities or the know-how about the technologies employed," it complained in its lengthy report.

So it called for "allowing a relatively small group of members of Congress, given time and reason to master the subject and the agencies, to conduct oversight of the intelligence establishment and be clearly accountable for their work."

It also urged that "members (of Congress) should serve indefinitely on the intelligence committees, without set terms, thereby letting them accumulate expertise."

But appeasing the Congressional Black Caucus is apparently more important to the House of Representatives' top Democrat than the commission's recommendations to protect America from terrorism.

Pelosi has made it known she wants Jane Harman forced off the intelligence committee under the guise of term limits. Harman, who represents Los Angeles' liberal West Side, is no reincarnation of that famous Democratic hawk, the late Sen. Scoop Jackson. But she is one of the more responsible Democrats in Congress.

She supported the Iraq invasion, for instance, and three months ago on NBC's "Meet the Press" she said: "All of us want the president to have the tools (to fight terrorism). I just voted again for the Patriot Act. I believe we need modern tools." She also noted that "everyone agreed there was WMD in Iraq" under Saddam Hussein.

Her replacement, if Pelosi gets her way, would be Alcee Hastings, the most liberal member of the Florida delegation. His priorities as the No. 2 Democrat on the intelligence panel have focused on finding "a definitive answer to their growing concerns about the what led to the current war in Iraq." And he boasts that "I have led the fight to increase diversity in the U.S. intelligence apparatus."

Hastings is a former federal judge who was impeached and removed from the bench by Congress in 1989 for conspiracy. Time Magazine's Joe Klein this week called the Harman-Hastings switch "a devastating negative (Republican) ad waiting to happen: 'Why do the Democrats want to put an impeached judge in charge of your national security?' "

But Pelosi has her own skin to think of, and giving Hastings such a plum spot could lock up support of the Black Caucus to elect Pelosi as speaker in the event the Democrats win the House this year — and perhaps allow her to survive as minority leader if they lose.

That's how it goes in a party that gives patronage and politics priority over the safety of the American people.