Republicans and Democrats in Harmony! Senators and Representatives holding hands and skipping through a meadow! These mortal enemies have come together against a common foe: dead bodies in federal buildings. They also agree on the need to keep drug users out of federal daycare centers! Who knew it would be so easy to foster accord on the Hill.
A House subcommittee held a hearing today to express their horror at a GAO report which showed that gross incompetence and mismanagement at the Federal Protective Service was leaving high-security federal buildings vulnerable to terrorist attack. A Senate subcommittee will hold a nearly identical hearing tomorrow.
They have a point. Given that elements of the two most devastating terrorist attacks on U.S. soil — Sept. 11 and the Oklahoma City bombing — were aimed at federal buildings, this isn’t an abstract risk, it’s a reality. If you can’t make security at federal buildings a funding priority, posturing on “national security” is a just that … posturing.
