July 11, 2006, - 3:06 pm
Homeland Security Farce: “Mr. Burns” Takes a Ride
By
A cold, stale bit of left-overs from Friday: To show America that we are safe (we aren’t) on the anniversary of the London 7/7 bombings, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff a/k/a “Mr. Burns” took a little ride on a choo choo train. Well, sort of.
He went took a brief ride on the Boston “T” (Boston’s mass transit train and subway system) to prove it was secure. If you’ve ever lived in Boston, as I did, or ridden the T, as I have, then you know it is probably the world’s most non-secure train system. Many T stops are above ground in the middle of the street. Anyone packed with explosives could easily ride one. There is no-one searching your bags on these “streetside” stops.
He may have all the Harvard degrees you could ever imagine–and use every opportunity, as he did this one, to brag about them–but Mr. Burns is the best argument of why we DON’T want a Harvard policy wonk ostensibly running anything having to do with law enforcement. A top official riding a brief second on a train doesn’t make us safer. Actually stopping illegal aliens and terrorists at the border and kicking them out of the interior does. As does stopping money laundering and smuggling by terrorists. Under Chertoff, DHS has been a whopping failure at all of these and more.
Aside from that, Chertoff doesn’t even have jurisdiction over safety on the “T.” Homeland Security has nothing to do with it, unless he’s going ahead with plans to put the Federal Air Marshals on “T” cars. And he isn’t. It’s all about the photo op, baby!
Watching Chertoff in his silly train stunt bragging about Harvard degrees makes me feel as safe as watching that 9/11 widow who tried to trademark “Let’s Roll” flying after 9/11. Yet, last week, a by our friends at Famous But Incompetent.
Safer? Nope. Less safe. And a silly Harvard Yard jaunt on a train won’t convince us otherwise. Two Harvard degrees or not.
Tags: America, Boston, Debbie Schlussel, Harvard, Homeland Security chief, law enforcement, Michael Chertoff, official, the anniversary of the London, Watching Chertoff
Photo-op, that’s all it is
KOAJaps on July 11, 2006 at 4:38 pm