re: #29 Charles

I still am not seeing the evidence that it was a political hit job. Lawyers always object to something — that’s what they get paid for. At some point, a decision has to be made whether to release a document like this or not. Just because there’s an objection to some language does not mean it was released for political reasons.

Governments always churn out documents and the lawyers always object to things, but this is the kind of objection that usually gets heeded. That it didn’t should raise some eyebrows. What was Napolitano’s justification for overruling her lawyers’ objections? It wasn’t a particularly satisfactory response and goes to her own lack of judgment on the issue. Once you get to this level in government, the decision to publish these kinds of reports and their contents do become political.

It becomes a question of what can be gained by phrasing things in one form or another. Had this been a document produced by lower levels of DHS and released without an input from DHS Napolitano, I might be inclined to agree with you Charles. However, when the head of DHS gets involved in the process and pushes a view that is absolutely certain to raise flags, I’d say that’s highly suggestive of being a politicized decision.