TSA is doing a great job training the American People to expect searches and pat downs, and by extension tracking and eavesdropping.

What is there not to be confident about?

I suspect that Obama's mostly confident that the unionized TSA workers will vote Democratic. Which is their real reason for existing anyway.

They don't have to vote Democratic. As long as they pay their union dues and the union funds the Democratic Party. By law, the US Government, as employer, will continue to deduct union dues from their paychecks and send it to an organization that is functionally an arm of the Democratic Party.

That's a major part of why Scott Walker ended automatic collectino of union dues by the Wisconsin government and let people choose whether they wanted to be represented by a union that engaged in the political activities in which theirs engaged. Without the automatic deduction, union funding dried up as forcibly unionized employees decided not to pay their dues.

Note, just as I predicted, Carraway was not 'removed', but 'reassigned'. No impact on salary, benefits or pension. He should be run out of town on a rail for heading an agency so manifestly unfit-for-purpose, instead, he just takes a ride in the revolving door that is Federal employment.

llater,

llamas

He should be run out of town on a rail for heading an agency so manifestly unfit-for-purpose....

He wasn't given much to work with. Could anyone else have effectively turned unionized retail clerks into security officers?

Seems strange that they miss 95% of weapons, but every damn time they find my souvenir spoon, go through my bag, and give me a hard time about it saying "It looks like a knife." Yeah, all knives have rounded bowls on one end and a decorative knick-knack on the other, like the race car and roulette wheel from Monaco.

I have a casual acquaintance from a parenting group who is thrilled that she just got hired by the TSA as a screener. Since she's a single mom and college student I can understand her being excited about the pay and benefits compared to her fast food job, but I'd have serious moral issues with it in the first place. She used to, until she got a job with them.

Drill sergeants turn pasty-face punks into hoo-rah Marines in 14 weeks. I understand the training for Israeli-style screeners is 3 weeks. The problem is not what they have to work with - the problem is that they don't know what they're doing, and have beeb led astray/seduced by political and corrupt incentives having nothing to do with 'security'. Put Bruce Schneier in charge, pay him $10,000 a week to develop a training program, then tell the workforce - from the director on down - pass this course in 2 tries, or you're out. For Ever.

Marine boot camp is tough. Marine OCS is hell. The officers are meant to be tougher than the troops. Not the case here, where the leaders are career civil servants with no special qualifications and no incentive to do it right. To them, it's just another civil-service job, no different than a stint at the USDA or the FCC.

llater,

lama

Glenn Reynolds: I suspect that Obama's mostly confident that the unionized TSA workers will vote Democratic. Which is their real reason for existing anyway.

Once again forgetting that Bush created this program, because the most vacationed President in history couldn't be bothered with paying attention to the warnings.

Once again forgetting that Bush created this program, because the most vacationed President in history couldn't be bothered with paying attention to the warnings. ~ Posted by: Patrick at June 3, 2015 11:29 AM

In spearheading the creation of the TSA, Bush specifically would not let the TSA be unionized. Obama unionized it almost immediately.

Also, Obama's been in charge for 6 years now. The TSA's performance is on him. If the TSA wasn't working, as the Chief Executive, it was his duty to abolish it or fix it.

"But the other guy created it" is the whine of an ineffective Chief.

"The most vacationed president in history" is misleading. A president, as Chief Executive, is never really on vacation. The real issue is how much of that "vacation" time was spent working? Reagan and Bush vacationed at their private houses which were nicknamed "The X White House" ("Western White House" for Reagan's Santa Barbara ranch) due to the frequency of work done there. Obama and Clinton vacationed at multiple resorts and rented properties - most of which had some accommodation for the president to get a bit of work done while there.

The number of vacation days taken doesn't really matter. Jimmy Carter only took 79 vacation days and is widely considered an ineffective president.

Resort vacations please the Secret Service because they're generally more defensible than motels and private residences. Martha's Vineyard is an island. Resorts are out of reach for most citizens, making it harder to get close to the president for nefarious purposes.

Resort vacations don't inconvenience the local populace. Presidents travel with a large retinue. Clinton was criticized for disrupting the locals during his Grand Teton vacation (taken after his tony Martha's Vineyard vacation made him look out of touch).

In another contrast, Bush had played 24 round of golf at this point in his presidency while Obama has played over 407. Even that contrast is misleading since Bush stopped playing in 2003, feeling it was inappropriate for the president to play golf while troops were fighting overseas. To put the golfing into perspective, Eisenhower had played over 800 rounds of golf while Wilson had played more than 1,200 at this point in their presidencies.

Also, Obama's been in charge for 6 years now. The TSA's performance is on him. If the TSA wasn't working, as the Chief Executive, it was his duty to abolish it or fix it.

"But the other guy created it" is the whine of an ineffective Chief.

Posted by: Conan the Grammarian at June 3, 2015 12:59 PM

Yes, and a lot of my former military friends were working as contractors in 2008 for the Intel agencies in DC.

Those flexible positions that were easy to hire and fire, and move around, based on agency needs, have now all been converted to Federal employment, with all the accompanying bureaucracy.

"Note, just as I predicted, Carraway was not 'removed', but 'reassigned'."

But Carraway's just the stooge. You know how this works: when a government agency gets caught with its hand in the political cookie jar, you blame a mid-level executive and "reassign" them. The newspaper people go away satisfied, and there's no threat to the people at the top. Then you get another stooge and continue with what you were doing before. It's how banana republics have worked since the beginning of time.

Drill sergeants turn pasty-face punks into hoo-rah Marines in 14 weeks.

Those pasty-faced punks aren't unionized.

And Marines don't have drill sergeants. They have drill instructors.