John Amato:
The Republicans have no shame.
That's a line that cannot be used enough. They politicize everything they can and their actions since Saturday have been almost been traitorous. Instead of being thankful that the bomber failed and then be of service, they are looking for another scalp to take home for the New Year. Cheney should be locked up along with his buddy Scooter Libby for his actions in the White House and now we have Burton chiming in as well. FOX News and conservatives couldn't defend Bush and his merry band of useless idiots enough, but the Democratic party didn't go on TV every day demanding someone be fired.
Why wasn't Condi fired after actually having information in the form of a PDB in her hand about the 9/11 attacks in August before they hit? Instead she was promoted and then the creepy CPAC wingnuts wanted her to run for president. The odious Dick Morris even wrote a book on a Condi-Hillary match up.
The Obama administration should ignore all this garbage.
December 29, 2009 CNN
REP. DAN BURTON (R), INDIANA: Well, first of all, once again, I hear people in the administration and the media trying to make the CIA the scapegoat. This report was made from Nigeria sometime ago and I can't believe since we now have a director of intelligence, that the CIA didn't give that to the director of intelligence. And if that information was disseminated to him, it was his responsibility to make sure that all of the intelligence agencies had that information. And this guy was on the watch list.
And that's one of the reasons why I called for Janet Napolitano's resignation, because as the head of homeland security she should have made sure that anybody that was on that watch list was disseminated around the world so they were watching for them and making sure they were cleared and checked very thoroughly before they got on an airplane. And they did not do that. And I think that's one of the reasons why she should be replaced. I don't think she has the experience to do the job.
CROWLEY: But as I understand it, there are about 500,000 people on the watch list. Is it realistic to think that we would know where they all are at any given time? BURTON: No, it's not realistic to know where all of them are at any one given time. But if you disseminated that information, around the world to the various intelligence agencies, they, through the computers that we have, they can alphabetically go through and check whether someone is getting on the plane. This is not rocket science. And to say, well, there's a half a million of them, we can't check them all is just kicking the ball down the road. We've got to be able to check these people and keep them off of American planes or any planes so that they don't kill hundreds and thousands of people.
CROWLEY: Just to make clear he was not on the no fly list, in fact, and probably even if his name had turned up --
BURTON: That makes no difference to me. The CIA talked to his father. His father went there and told them that he was a risk. They sent that information to Langley. I believe that information did go to the director of intelligence. And that information, because we put that director of intelligence in place, was supposed to disseminate that information all over the place to every intelligence agency.
We did that right after 9/11 because the CIA and the FBI weren't talking to each other and so that's why the director of intelligence was created. This information was sent to CIA and I do not believe Leon Panetta or the CIA would have kept that from the director of intelligence. And if they got it to him I'm confident he would disseminate it to the homeland security and everybody else. And that man being on the watch list should have been checked very thoroughly before he got on there. Not to mention that he didn't have luggage. He bought a one way ticket. And he paid cash. And he came from Nigeria. And he came through -- I mean, come on. This guy should have been checked. He should never have been on that plane.
