End the Spin
[Today's guest author is Mike Walker. Mr. Walker served as Under Secretary and Acting Secretary of the Army, Under Secretary of Veterans Affairs and Deputy Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the Clinton Administration. He also spent 25 years as a senior staffer on Capitol Hill.]
I am ashamed of both. The effort to use the threat of terrorism for political purposes is not only inappropriate, it is dangerous. And it must stop.
The security of this nation must always rise above politics. Sadly, security has the potential of becoming the wedge issue of the decade of 2010.
My entire career has been in politics and government service. I had great hope the Obama Administration would be able to forge a bipartisan national security policy and end the destructive squabbling of the last decade. But that has not happened.
Instead, the divide continues to grow. And the botched attack aboard NWA 253 threatens to further polarize American politics.
The current political spin will not result in a safer America. It will not give any political party an edge to defeat the other. The American people are too smart. And they are fed up with politicians using American’s security for political gain.
Our great nation is the loser in this destructive debate. Spinning homeland security serves only one entity – our terrorist enemies. For it demonstrates that politics in America is deemed to be more important than security itself.
I appeal to my friends on both sides of the political aisle to rise above the partisanship that is threatening our security as surely as the terrorists.
After two decades of studying the international terrorist threat, I am certain of one thing. Terrorists look for seams to use against us. The political seam between the White House and the opposition party over the politics of security is the greatest threat to America.
