In defense of Janet Napolitano
Yet another thing the Secretary of Homeland Security oversees (Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife)
By any measure, this has not been a good year for former Arizona Governor and current Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. Let’s have a look at some of the big problems that have befallen her Department of Homeland Security this year:
- Early in her tenure, word leaked that the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence office had prepared a report warning of rising homegrown extremism from groups not distant from the militias of the 1990s; conservative groups cried foul that Napolitano was like Janet Reno redux, and accused her of politicizing intelligence and law enforcement against opponents of the current administration.
- The US Coast Guard, a DHS organ, carried out a preparedness exercise on September 11, prompting CNN to freak out the world with erroneous reports that shots had been fired outside the Pentagon around the time President Obama was memorializing the fallen. The non-controversy prompted a review following the bad press that the press had to create to cover its ass for scare-mongering over a non-event.
- Tareq and Michaele Salahi snuck past the Secret Service, also under the DHS’s umbrella, and transformed a state dinner with India’s Prime Minister into a sickening reality TV show stunt.
- Oh hey, did you hear about the Nigerian wannabe martyr with the bomb in his underpants? Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, but fortunately failed. Turns out he was on a watch list, but that didn’t stop him from boarding the America-bound plane because he hadn’t actually been added to the no-fly list. Napolitano, after thanking passengers and crew for responding first, dunder-headedly declared that “the system worked” on CNN this Sunday.
I highlight all four of these very distinct incidents not to show what Napolitano has been a failure as Secretary of Homeland Security, but to show how weird and varied the controversies related to her department have been this year. When you look at the contrasts between the four, and how unrelated they are to one another, it really starts to feel like the problem is not Janet Napolitano – the problem is the Department of Homeland Security.
The Secretary, after all, is a former attorney general and governor of Arizona, a border state with its enormous share of immigration problems. And that leads me to wonder if Napolitano would be doing a great job if she were the Secretary of Immigration.
Instead, she’s responsible for overseeing immigration, customs, aviation security, detection of nuclear materials at US ports, intelligence analyses of threats inside America, the Coast Guard, disaster response and management via FEMA, and this is already enough of a run-on sentence if anyone is still reading it. And when you consider all of those varied, critical responsibilities underneath a single umbrella, the possibility for one or more of them experiencing a critical failure seems imminent at any given moment. If the Department of Homeland Security were managed by a Frank Herbert-style mentat, I don’t think that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would have been prevented from getting on board that plane with his hot pants. Managing this post-9/11 Frankenstein, which is more like a Scuzzlebutt with its diffuse functions, seems like a task that is bound to create very rough moments for any candidate for the job, whether it’s Napolitano, or her predecessors Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff.
But there is little acknowledgment among Napolitano’s critics that the woman who is supposed to oversee the agency that ensures aviation security standards around the world also has to oversee the agency that makes sure people who suffer from tornadoes and hurricanes have shelter to stay in, and also has to oversee the agency that makes sure Presidents don’t get assassinated, and then has to oversee the agency that prevents motorboats from colliding with trash barges.
Instead, she is compared to President Bush’s lackluster FEMA director Michael Brown. Brownie, you’ll recall, focused on which tie he should wear on TV as New Orleans’s levees cracked. He did this rather than get the attention of a president who was too busy bringing a birthday cake to John McCain to make sure that Hurricane Katrina wasn’t going to wipe out a big part of American life. After Katrina and Rita, and Bush’s out-of-touch ‘Heckuvajob’ declaration, there was no question that Brown had to go. Others want to apply the same logic to Napolitano now.
In response, I say don’t fire the Secretary of Homeland Security – fire the Department of Homeland Security. One woman or man should not have the job of overseeing aviation, maritime, and border security, as well as the more mundane details of immigration and customs, as well as presidential protection, as well as disaster preparedness and response. True, there are moments when these functions overlap, but they are fleeting. A TSA airport screener has as much to do with a bureaucrat issuing visas as a postal worker has to do with an IRS auditor. But these people since shortly after 9/11 have had the same harried, overworked boss.
If Janet Napolitano were a Secretary for Immigration, and some other Cabinet-level worthy was responsible for all elements of border security (border walls, TSA, Coast Guard), and yet another Cabient-level officer was responsible for all elements of disaster preparedness, it would be much clearer where the buck stopped because each of these distinct problem-areas would have a line to the President of the United States. Instead, Napolitano sits atop an org chart of Rube Goldberg proportions, and gets the blame for all of it.
If the affair of Abdulmutallab’s underwear shows us anything, it’s that the Bush-era DHS model is a failure. Don’t sack Secretary Napolitano – give her *a* job she’s capable of performing, not six.
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
I am a citizen of the United States and I have a friend that is from
Paris, France here on a student visa to finish his degree. Noureddine
Feddane has been here since 2005. His visa is valid until March of
2010, his passport is valid until 2014, and his I-20 is current. He is
not what people call an ‘illegal immigrant.’ In 2008, he fell in love
and married a U.S. citizen that just happens to be addicted to
prescription medications. Noureddine knew nothing about this. But he
was arrested due to her mistakes.
He was placed in detention and scheduled for deportation. My friend
has been in detention center in Pompano Beach Florida for 5 months
now. This couple has lost all there savings on lawyers, she lost her
job, and they are in the process of losing their home. All this was
caused because ICE has the wrong person in jail.
I have written many letters to Janet Napolitano, Senator Bill Nelson,
Representative Ginny Brown-Waite and even President Obama. But no one
will listen. What is illegal in this case is the way DHS is treating
this guy, who is 51 and has never had a traffic violation. While in
detention center, they have abused him, denied him food and proper
medical treatment. Noureddine is diabetic and they will not give him
the proper food or medical attention. The phone system is very poor
and hardly works. I suspect that they plan it that way so the
detainees cannot contact their lawyers and family. I fear he will be
next on the long list of persons that have died while in detention.
Until you go to one of these detention centers and see with your own
eyes, you will not believe what America is doing. I was shocked, on my
first visit and after almost 6 months of seeing what happens and how
they have to live, I am still in shock. It is all about the money
. My friend has never
cost America anything until they locked him up. He is in a private
prison owned by a company called GEO
based near Miami, Florida. They are paid very well by our tax dollars,
but the treatment is unbelievable. I wonder how many politicians have
stock in this company. They are doing quite well even in a bad
economy.
Six months ago I had no idea that we treated immigrants in this way,
especially when they are here legally and have done nothing wrong. I
knew nothing about ICE and how they operate illegally
. I was under
the impression that DHS was here only to protect us from terrorists.
And I had no idea of the millions of our tax dollars were being wasted
to imprison people that could be out of detention and have their
family support them until a decision is made in immigration court. I
do not understand why we have to pay our hard earned tax dollars to
house and feed persons that are not dangerous.
When they have to lock up a man who has done nothing wrong, make him
spend thousands in fees, ICE is giving way too much importance to
themselves. How can we turn such educated people away simply to boost
the ego of ICE officers and add another number to the Janet Napolitano
deportation list, so that the Obama Administration can look like it is
doing its job of ‘cracking down on criminals?’
Something has to change soon. I feel it is my duty as an American to
let as many people as possible know the truth. I visit the detention
center every Saturday and spend the rest of the week writing letters.
This Christmas, let’s do something worthwhile. Let’s go back to
protecting the country rather than making up stories to justify the
expansion of a national security complex. Let’s end businesses
profiting from immigrant detention and restore our image as a nation
of immigrants.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by law , Dallas Divas. Dallas Divas said: In defense of Janet Napolitano http://bit.ly/4MY7KE [...]
Well said, Michael. This is the kind of smart analysis that we should be focusing on instead of all these emotional calls to fire Nepalitano. Creating the Department of Homeland Security was a mistake. I say, fire away…
Thanks Erik. I think she’s done a poor job of explaining what’s going on, but clearly we have a bigger problem here than just one person.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] a smart reaction to this whole debacle, read Michael Roston: In response, I say don’t fire the Secretary of Homeland Security – fire the Department of [...]
The creation of the DHS, recall, was intended to ensure we were introducing the left and right hands and kept them on a friendly, ongoing basis. Post-morteming events of September 11, 2001, e.g., showed disparate agencies with various pieces of different puzzles. The ostensible idea was having them all report into a “single agency” would help find and weave these threads.
While that is the charge of the position, it’s reasonable for us to expect the leader to be able to take that charge. The Secretary of X is not a lone wolf – they’ve got teams of folks to assist in carrying out their duties. Their reports and reports of reports have teams of folks to assist.
Regardless, I don’t think it’s “fair” to appoint someone to a job – and for someone to accept a job – and then expect to get away with being defended with an argument that “it’s an impossible job, anyways.” If not even a Thufir Hawat could possibly be so skilled a weaver as is required, then why should we bother continuing the charade?
(and, obtw, this is not anti-Napolitano [love her frozen treats {except for the strawberry}], but more counter-this defense of her job)
Oh yes, Steve, I recall the creation of DHS, and the bizarre decision to name it ‘Homeland Security’ which was plucked from some bizarre contractor documents written up in the late ’90s, even though it evoked the ‘homelands’ where South Africa’s apartheid regime tried to lock up all of the country’s black citizens. For a year, DHS was actually a White House-level office. Instead it became this Scuzzlebutt creature we see now.
The point you raise is fair – and Napolitano gets the blame for all of these problems I identified. But the point remains that there are too many problems that she’s getting the blame for, and she’s no Thufir, and in some cases doesn’t even have Thufirs working beneath her yet. If some of the problems had the levels of urgency of Cabinet offices (We’re a nation of immigrants, so let’s have a Department of Immigration – we’re a nation with plenty of natural and manmade disasters, so let’s have a Department of Preparedness and Response), I don’t think they’d be short-staffed.
So in a sense, I think this is more a problem of Obama needing to have the imagination to fix a broken system, and less a problem of Napolitano being a bad manager. As is often the case, the first ’solution’ to a ‘problem’ often defines the problem in the wrong way and thus gives it a faulty solution.
(Of course, once Obama tries to break DHS into 3 different Cabinet offices, Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann will automatically accuse him of trying to create concentration camps for good Christian Americans, yadda yadda)
In response to another comment. See in context »Politicization will happen, indeed, from all sides; no one likes dismantling a great, pork-filled cover operation.
And even if you had a single, Cabinet-level office for The Department of Restricting Air Travel for People Quite Likely to Ignite their Footwear or Genitalia, it’s still a tough / impossible job if the people charged with implementing it aren’t allowed to use detective work and the collected intel at their disposal. (“Sorry, Officer: you’ve already detained your monthly quota of potential Calvin-Kaboomers; go strip search that old lady’s cats instead.”)
It ain’t easy; no one’s claimed otherwise.
In response to another comment. See in context »You are quite right, Homeland Security is a Frankenstein monster that didn’t even address the main problem of 9/11 which was the FBI and CIA not comparing notes. It should also be noted that TSA doesn’t have a chief at the moment because of Senate hold ups.
You left out the part where she called returning American vets from Iraq/Afghanistan potential terrorists….
All Muslims should be profiled….how many non-muslims have blown up anything besides obama’s good friend, Bill Ayers?
Hey Andy, you’re a racist.
In response to another comment. See in context »Michael, “muslim” is not a race. There are Muslims from Africa, Muslims who are Arab, Muslims from Indonesia, Chinese Muslims, etc. Islam is a political ideology tied to religious belief based on the interpretations of the Qur’an.
Please don’t equate anti-Muslim to be racism. This is incorrect and misleading.
mozza,
It may not be racist to call Islam a “political ideology” but it sure is tone-deaf. Islam is a religion and just as there are liberal and conservative Christians; there are liberal and conservative Muslims.
Perhaps bigoted or prejudiced should be used instead of racist, but anti-Muslim cant is just as hateful.
BTW, the thing I notice about all these grievous errors Janet Napolitano seems to have made is that, in fact, NOTHING HAPPENED! As far as I’m concerned, JN should tell the blogosphere and the punditocracy to FO until something worse than a geek blowing up his underpants occurs.
In response to another comment. See in context »Yes we all make mistakes even Janet. But she needs to fix them!
comes from Carl McGinnis, a citizen of the United States, who has seen the horrors of immigrant detention after ICE detained his legal immigrant friend, Noureddine Feddane. He tells us that it is not just about undocumented immigrants but even people who follow the rules get burned in our archaic and inhumane immigration system].
I am a citizen of the United States and I have a friend that is from Paris, France here on a student visa with a double master’s degree working on his PhD in International Finance. Noureddine Feddane has been here since 2005. His visa is valid until March of 2010, his passport is valid until 2014, and his I-20 is current. He is not what people call an ‘illegal immigrant.’ In 2008, he fell in love and married a U.S. citizen that just happens to be addicted to prescription medications. Noureddine knew nothing about this until June of 2009 when she had surgery for a work related accident. But he was arrested due to her mistake of being over medicated.
He was placed in detention and scheduled for deportation. My friend has been in a detention center in Pompano Beach Florida for 5 months now. This couple has lost all there savings on lawyers, she lost her job, and they are in the process of losing their home. All this was caused because ICE has the wrong person in jail. His wife is so afraid of the threats that ICE officers have made that she will go to prison after admitting her drug problem, she has gone into hiding, left the home, and deserted her husband in fear. She no longer goes to BTC detention center to visit.
I have written many letters to Janet Napolitano, Senator Bill Nelson, Representative Ginny Brown-Waite and even President Obama. But no one will listen. What is illegal in this case is the way DHS is treating this guy, who is 51yrs old and has never even had a traffic violation. While in the detention center, they have abused him, he was beaten by another detainee, denied him food and proper medical treatment. Noureddine is diabetic and they will not give him the proper food or medical attention. The phone system is very poor and hardly works. I suspect that they plan it that way so the detainees cannot contact their lawyers and family. I fear he will be next on the long list of persons that have died while in detention.
Until you go to one of these detention centers and see with your own eyes, you will not believe what America is doing. I was shocked, on my first visit and after almost 6 months of seeing what happens and how they have to live, I am still in shock. It is all about the money. My friend has never cost America anything until they locked him up. He is in a private prison owned by a company called GEO based near Miami, Florida. They are paid very well by our tax dollars, but the treatment is unbelievable. I wonder how many politicians have stock in this company. They are doing quite well even in a bad economy. Feel free to watch them at GEO on the NYSE.
Six months ago I had no idea that we treated immigrants in this way, especially when they are here legally and have done nothing wrong. I knew nothing about ICE and how they operate illegally. I was under the impression that DHS was here only to protect us from terrorists. And I had no idea of the millions of our tax dollars were being wasted to imprison people that could be out of detention and have their family support them until a decision is made in immigration court. I do not understand why we have to pay our hard earned tax dollars to house and feed persons that are not dangerous.
When they have to lock up a man who has done nothing wrong, make him spend thousands in fees, ICE is giving way too much importance to them selves. How can we turn such educated people away simply to boost the ego of ICE officers and add another number to the Janet Napolitano deportation list, so that the Obama Administration can look like it is doing its job of ‘cracking down on criminals?’
Something has to change soon. I feel it is my duty as an American to let as many people as possible know the truth. I visit the detention center every Saturday and spend the rest of the week writing letters. This Christmas, lets do something worthwhile. Lets go back to protecting the country rather than making up stories to justify the expansion of a national security complex. Lets end businesses profiting from immigrant detention and restore our image as a nation of immigrants.