LET US PRAY

In his first interview after the Senate voted to create the Department of Homeland Security, Domestic Security Advisor Tom Ridge was asked how he will lead the largest government reorganization since World War II ended and the Cold War began. “I may need to go to church every day,” was the answer.

Certainly, anyone charged with merging 22 agencies and 170,000 workers into a giant new bureaucracy, one that from the start will be the third largest in the entire federal government, can use all the divine guidance he can get. From the mortal realm – the agencies, Congress and the White House – Mr. Ridge will need cooperation, common sense and focus not yet sufficiently evident.

The current buzzword in Washington for this undertaking is “moving the boxes,” a reference to the familiar organizational chart and massive re-arranging of all the symbols that designate who reports to whom. It already is plainly and disappointingly clear, however, that many in Washington see this as nothing more just than moving boxes and that the boxes are filled with goodies.

Years from now, if this undertaking succeeds, the condensed version of history will record it as a rare example of Americans swiftly uniting in purpose. The United States was brazenly and cruelly attacked. Lapses in intelligence gathering and sharing were immediately exposed. A leading Democrat, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, promptly proposed a huge reorganization to seal the gaps. President Bush, though of the party wary of larger government, soon recognized the uniqueness of the circumstances and proposed reorganization much like the senator’s proposal. In just one year, record time for a matter such importance, the legislation was complete.

That truncated version of events omits a lot of ugly details. Such as how other Senate Democrats of a less constructive nature than Sen. Lieberman unconscionably stalled this vital legislation by using the matter of protecting unionized federal workers not as a problem to be solved but as a ploy to get votes in a mid-term election.

How it took a stunning rebuke at the polls for those Democrats to realize that the American people take this homeland security thing quite seriously. How House Republicans, their senses clouded by the intoxicating election results, packed the legislation with outrageous pork-barrel provisions for their home districts and favorite special interests. How, with the president and Senate Republican leaders apparently content to mutter disapprovingly among themselves about this shameful conduct and Democrats willing to use it as an excuse for more stalling, it took a bold stand by three New England Republican moderates – including Maine Sens. Snowe and Collins – to forge a compromise that kept the legislation moving toward passage and that will cull out the most shameful add-ons. How, from the moment the Department of Homeland Security was proposed, many of the agencies affected have engaged in disgraceful back-stabbing and rumor-mongering (the FBI’s leaked “evaluation” of the ATF a recent example) to protect their turf.

Now that the legislation is passed, it is time for the president and the leaders of both parties to see it is executed in the national – not party, not special – interest. Even with the help of New England Republican moderates, this undertaking cannot succeed if Homeland Security Secretary Ridge is forced to daily prayer for protection against every petty politician and selfish bureaucrat.