National Security

"Perhaps if Al-Qaeda were actually on steroids, then the House leadership would be more interested in dealing with them."
Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee

While the nation is at war, and the clock was ticking ever closer toward the expiration of the Protect America Act, the House Government Affairs Committee created a media spectacle by parading Roger Clemens through a Congressional investigation hearing into baseball's fascination with human growth hormone. Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) preened for the cameras gloating at his opportunity for face time on every news outlet across the country and much of the globe fascinated at the celebrity scandal spectacle. Enquiring minds want to know, after all, and Waxman obliged by degrading the United States Capitol into little more than People Magazine. I expect the Los Angeles liberal will soon subpoena Britney Spears to testify regarding celebrity-memory-lapse syndrome resulting in such things as forgetting to put on underwear and where she left her kids.

While Waxman was lapping up television face time, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was doing her own shameful act on the floor of the House Chamber by muscling through a partisan contempt citation for White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former Presidential Counsel Harriet Miers. White House Press Secretary (and Coloradan) Dana Perino summed up Pelosi's stunt accurately in saying, "It is astonishing and deeply troubling that after months of delay on passing a bill that will help our intelligence professionals monitor foreign terrorists who want to kill Americans, the House has instead turned its attention to the silly, pointless, and unjust act of approving these contempt resolutions."

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) led a walk out protest of all the Republicans who held a press conference on the Capitol steps shaming Pelosi's unconscionable actions. Boehner said, "We have space on the calendar today for a politically charged fishing expedition but not space for a bill that would protect the American people from terrorists who want to kill us."

The Protect America Act greatly enhanced the ability of our Intelligence Community to gather telecommunication from our enemies. In today's technological world, time and flexibility are everything and the PAA gave them the tools they need to help keep America safe. Pelosi's flagrant and shameful act is compounded by the fact that the House would have overwhelmingly passed the Senate's bill to reauthorize the legislation – overwhelmingly with bipartisan support, and she knew it. She caved in to the Code Pink-Cindy Sheehan, anti-war, anti-Bush, left wing of her constituent base and effectively exercised a pocket veto by refusing to even schedule a vote.

As of midnight Saturday, February 16 the Protect America Act expired. America is more vulnerable. And al Qaeda has a new vulnerability to exploit.