"If I told you, I'd have to kill you." This corny spy thriller phrase seems to have found some footing among administration control freaks who want to keep congressmen with security clearances from learning the truth. What is up with this plan for maintaining control in the event of a terrorist attack or other national crisis? Hopefully, we'll never know. Members of the Committee on Homeland Security have been denied access to the information, and are attempting a second request.
At first it was Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) who requested the plan, which, in the event of Doomsday, shifts planning for the first time from FEMA to the White House. But the administration has stonewalled the details. It could have allowed members of Congress to view the classified documents in the "bubbleroom" where such activities normally take place. But the White House has stubbornly refused to allow DeFazio, an elected representative with the required security clearance, any access to the secret plan.
DeFazio has sent another request to the administration, co-signed by Bennie Thompson (D-Miss), chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, and Chris Carney (D-Pa.), chairman of the Homeland Security oversight subcommittee. "We can think of no basis for you to deny members of the Committee on Homeland Security the opportunity to review this document in a secure setting," the letter says. "This response is as troubling as it is shocking."
Questions abound.
What did Cheney just have implanted? What were they searching for in Bush's colon? What event will suffice to invoke the details of this plan? What is the plan? DeFazio and his committee members need to exercise the oversight that the Constitution calls for. Apparently they can do that only if the administration concurs.
What are they hiding? We have come to expect no less obstructionism from this administration.
Are we so inured to it that we can't summon outrage over this action?