If Napolitano should resign, Bush and Cheney should have been impeached

Reprinted from The Hill

If Janet Napolitano should be fired for her role in the Christmas bombing plot, George W. Bush should have been impeached for being warned about planes flying into buildings in New York and ignoring those warnings, and Dick Cheney should have been impeached for his role in the CIA leak case and prosecuted for his role surrounding torture.

No, the cheap, partisan attacks should stop. Republicans should be far more modest about their own responsibility. Of course, Napolitano could have handled this better, but the consequences of her mistakes are nothing compared to the consequences of mistakes by Bush, Cheney, Alberto Gonzales and many others.

The president has not handled this well. This problem of intelligence and counterterrorism began long ago, under both parties, and remains today, and must be addressed. It was not brilliant for the president to first downplay the importance of this, and then show his anger at others in his administration without taking responsibility himself.

The president should have taken responsibility from day one and told the nation he would find the mistakes, correct them, and set things right.

As for the partisans, the cheap shots, the fast talk and easy answer crowd, Republicans should take responsibility for their part. They should stop their obsessive partisanship. And Democrats and Republicans should work together to solve the problem.