Some of you have probably already read the finger pointing that’s been going on with the recent failed terrorist attempt. Early on, liberals wanted to blame Republicans’ failure to quickly confirm Obama’s TSA nomination of Erroll Southers. Republican Senator Demint quickly came under fire from the Left who accused him of jeopardizing our national security by holding up the nomination. But here’s the problem with that argument. If national security was such a concern for Obama and the Left then why did it take Obama 9 month to nominate Southers?
The Left has been hammering Senator Demint, demanding that Southers be confirmed quickly. Demint has argued that it’s imperative that; all nominees be carefully vetted and investigated, that the Senate has an obligation to ensure that the person nominated is qualified, and that there are no “smoking guns” that would disqualify the candidate. It’s now become clear why Democrats wanted a quick nomination of Southers. The Washington Post had the following article posted at their site yesterday and the AP reports:
Acknowledging he has given inconsistent answers to Congress, President Barack Obama’s pick to lead the Transportation Security Administration wrote to lawmakers to explain a reprimand he received for running background checks on his then-estranged wife’s boyfriend two decades ago.
Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent whose nomination has been delayed by Republicans for unrelated concerns, sent a letter to senators in November to correct what he called a distortion of his record. As Democrats push for his speedy confirmation, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee said he maintained faith in the nominee.
“I am distressed by the inconsistencies between my recollection and the contemporaneous documents, but I assure you that the mistake was inadvertent, and that I have at all times taken full responsibility for what I know to have been a grave error in judgment,” he wrote in a letter to Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine.
“This incident was over 20 years ago, I was distraught and concerned about my young son, and never in my career since has there been any recurrence of this sort of conduct.”
In an October affidavit for the Senate committee, he initially said he asked a San Diego police employee to run a background check on his then-estranged wife’s boyfriend and was censured by his FBI superiors 20 years ago for what he said was an isolated instance.
But a day after the committee approved his nomination and sent it to the full Senate, he wrote to the senators and told them that he was incorrect, that he twice ran background checks himself.
In the letter correcting the record, Southers also said he downloaded law enforcement records and shared them. He said he forgot the incident in 1987 or 1988.
The letter was first reported by The Washington Post’s Web site on Thursday… continued.
Southers claims to have “forgotten” that he ordered the background check, originally claiming on his nomination questionnaire that it was an aide who did. Prior to heading to the full Senate for confirmation, his memory suddenly improved and he recalled that he personally had the background checks done on his ex wife’s boyfriend.
Clearly, any one with an ounce of commonsense will not believe his claim of forgetfulness. This is a man who used the power of his office to investigate people outside the scope of his job and now the President and the Congress want us to entrust this man with much more information on our lives that may be used for purposes that they aren’t intended to be used for. Of course the White House continues to defend the nomination of Southers. No word on whether or not the Left will defend Senator Demint’s genuine concern over the nominee, however.
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