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.
Brent Budowsky is a regular columnist on thehill.com. He served as Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen, responsible for commerce and intelligence matters, including one of the core drafters of the CIA Identities Law. Served (more...)
