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D (for Department) Day
Monday, June 17, 2002
In his morning discussion with reporters (known as the Gaggle) Ari Fleischer made the point that Homeland Security Advisor, Tom Ridge had stated publicly; and Office of Management and Budget Director, Mitch Daniels said, in Congressional testimony, that "the structure for organizing and overseeing homeland security may evolve over time as we learn more and as circumstances changed."
We have learned more: There are a lot of people in the world who don't like us; there are a lot of ways to demonstrate that dislike; and, it is not likely we can stop every single one of them, every single time from entering the US.
And circumstances have changed: We now know that the FBI couldn't get the FBI to do what the FBI wanted the FBI to do, so how can an advisor to the President hope to have the heft to make cultural and structural changes stick?
I ran into a friend at the airport here, Steve Bartlett, former Mayor of Dallas and now the head of the Financial Services Roundtable. He said that what people still don't understand about President Bush is this: He will start thinking about an issue, predisposed toward a position which fits into his world view - which is Conservative. He will listen to his advisors and staff who, for the most part, share that predisposition.
He will then listen to people who might not share that same predisposition and, who come at the issue from a different direction. He will accept that thinking in weighing his final decision.
If he thinks the new approach makes more sense, then he will decide in favor of the better idea, notwithstanding his starting point.
This, is called: Leadership.
It is one thing for the President to propose a new Cabinet-level Department. It is something else for the Congress to authorize it. As a number of Members of the House and Senate - Republican and Democrat - have been urging this step, getting the process started will not be a problem.
What MAY be a problem is getting the process completed.
There was some indication last night that Speaker Dennis Hastert might introduce the House bill. The Speaker said in a statement that there was a pressing need to unravel the "over-wrapping bureaucracy" within which Homeland Security is bound.
There will be a battle in both the House and the Senate for Committee jurisdiction. When a bill is introduced it is referred to the appropriate committee or committees. The new Homeland Security Department has so many moving parts, almost every standing committee on both sides of the Capitol have some jurisdiction. Every Committee and Subcommittee chair will want to host a hearing, and every staff director is on the phone AS WE SPEAK trying to get their hands around a piece of this.
As this is the most significant reform of the Federal government since 1947, the principal Committee in the House is likely to be the aptly named Government Reform chaired by Dan Burton (R-IN). The appropriate Subcommittee is the Subcommittee on National Security.
Guess who chairs that committee? Christopher Shays (R-CT) sponsor of the campaign finance reform bill in the House. Regular Mullsters will remember that I wrote of Shays, "Chris Shays is an honorable guy. A principled guy.
If Shays gets this bill, the President's plan will be in good hands.
On the Ollie North radio show yesterday, he wondered whether Democrats would parse the plan so closely they would, in effect, whine it to death. He said that Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) had been quoted as saying this was the equivalent of "shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic."
Um, Senator? Would you like to rethink that metaphor?
For and the usual stuff go to the Secret Decoder Ring page.
--END --
Copyright © 2002 Richard A. Galen
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