Trust Us -- Don't Test Us...

[Sheila Samples]

ABC has done it again. For the second time in its investigation of border inspections, network reporters smuggled what is described as harmless depleted uranium into the United States via Los Angeles from Jakarta, Indonesia.

Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft are up in arms about the report ABC aired last Thursday, the second anniversary of 9-11 -- not that it was false, nor that security is so lax anyone can backpack WMD across the borders and through US airports -- but because ABC reporter Brian Ross "broke the law."

Seems the law is if terrorists are smuggling stuff like that into this country, they're honor bound to declare the contents of their packages. That's the rules of the Homeland Security game -- a game the media aren't allowed to play. Any attempts by investigative journalists to sneak into the action are severely frowned upon by this administration, whose slogan is "Trust us -- Don't Test us..."

Of course, as Dubya likes to say with relish, "there will be consequences..." Not for the lapses in homeland security that you can drive a convoy of Mack trucks through -- but for a media with the audacity to think it was free and that it was operating in a free country under the freedom of the First Amendment.

Those zany "anonymous sources" in Ashcroft's lair say they're drafting criminal charges against Ross and ABC -- which, of course, will serve as a warning to other media who might be thinking of asking the administration pesky questions. Dubbie likes to "send warnings," and each one is a shot heard 'round the world.

"We believe ABC News may have broken the law, and we are pursuing the appropriate course of action," Homeland Security Department spokesman Dennis Murphy said primly as he struggled to untangle the knot in his panties.

"It is a question of whether or not journalists should be breaking the law in the pursuit of a news story." Besides, Murphy added petulantly, eyes glazed under slightly twitching eyelids, "It's not right for a reporter to rob a bank to prove the bank has lax security."

Oh my farging God, did that toadie really say a reporter shouldn't rob a bank to prove the bank has lax security? Tell me he doesn't really expect thinking citizens to buy into the theory that a single bank is analogous to the US government, especially the massive Homeland Security apparatus responsible for the safety of 280 million people!

The ABC report exposing the frightening shortcomings of our national security apparatus -- and the shallow, vindictive response by government officials -- should give a massive dose of reality to every US citizen deluded into "trusting" that this bunch is on top of homeland security. It's incredibly depressing to realize that they don't have a clue, and that they're so astonishingly corrupt and mean-spirited that their only solution to having their incompetency exposed is not to fix the problem, but to bring criminal charges against those who exposed them.

[Rex]

1. They got caught with their pants down.

The anger is from ABC pulling the curtain aside, so that we can see the "Great and Powerful Oz". Actually, the robbers are the BFEE in this case. Homeland security is no better than it was 2 years ago, ABC just proved it and yet WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE?

[RC]

2. Where has all the money gone?

Retirement plans, management pay raises, bonuses, election campaign donations, you know the usual.

[bandy]

3. I think that pursuing this

could be detrimental to their little game. They should just excuse themselves and leave this to blow over like everything else that appears to make monkeys out of them. The more public this becomes the more they look like total screwups.