When those polls pop up showing that the American people think President Bush more trustworthy than his opponent on fighting terrorism and securing the homeland, your blogstress can't help wondering, on what planet do those surveyed dwell?
Are they not on the planet where Border Patrol officers, agents of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, and indeed all of the Department of Homeland Security, toil under a hiring freeze? Do they not inhabit the blue marble on which the folks at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforce the law not only under a hiring freeze, but under a spending freeze, as well?
Then there's the second resignation of a cybersecurity chief in the last 18 months, apparently out of frustration for the lack of resources afforded him for securing the computer-driven infrastructure that regulates, among other things, the electricity grid.
As if that's not enough, the Department of Homeland Security's own inspector general issued, this week, a scathing report about the agency's failure to create a unified terrorist watch list, which is supposed to be one of DHS's topmost priorities.
Of course, there's also that little problem of integrating the systems of the Border Patrol and other homeland security entities charged with regulating access to and egress from the nation's interior--a task that has yet to be completed.
And remember that news item that Kerry noted in the debate--the one about the FBI failing to translate more than 100,000 hours of wiretapped conversations between potential terrorists? Check out Tom Burka's Opinions You Should Have for more about that.
The solution? Deploy a warbling Jersey mobster on every plane. (This sent to your cybertrix by the smoldering Gang of One, whose musings are soon to appear in the blogosphere near you on a site called Favorite Heretic.)
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