1115.org

Now that Rumsfeld is virtually gone, who will take over the title that falls vacant—the cabinet secretary who regularly spouts the most nonsense? My personal favorite is Michael Chertoff, our much admired and much loved Homeland secretary.

Like Rumsfeld, he commands an admirable range, going effortlessly from gobbledygook (the rightly famous “to enhance and expand a hardened set of communication capabilities”) to balderdash. Take, for example, the comment he made Friday in connection with the dustup about exit-monitoring systems.

The system is regarded as critical to national security. Congress ordered the creation of such a system in 1996. The deadline to have exit-monitoring systems in place at the 50 busiest land border crossings is next December. Apparently, eleven years wasn’t close to being enough. A report released on Thursday by the Government Accountability Office says that the administration now believes it will take 5 to 10 years to develop technology that might allow for a cost-effective departure system. Now enter Chertoff, stage right:

At a midday news conference, Chertoff said the department’s “priorities have been tailored to the highest risk.”

“The highest priority is to keep terrorists out of the country,” he said. “If we keep them out in the first place we don’t have to worry about them staying over.”

That’s pretty high quality balderdash right there.

We try our best to keep them out. And then we worry about the ones who make it through anyway. That’s the whole bloody point. That’s the risk that needs to be addressed. That’s what this joker is supposed to be protecting this country against.

You don’t just try to keep them out, Mikey, and declare that to be a job well done, and roll over and go back to sleep. Since we can’t keep them all out, we worry about the ones who get in and stay over. We take basic steps to identify who they are.

Like old George himself, you’re sleeping entirely too well for my liking, Mike. Like George again, that seems to include sleeping on the job.