Obama Taps AZ Gov. Janet Napolitano to Head Homeland Security

Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville at 12:22 PM on November 20, 2008.

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano has been tapped by President-Elect Obama to head the Department of Homeland Security, pending vetting.

I guess it's too much for which to hope that her first order of business will be to defang and rename the creepily fascistic DHS.

Because I don't really like this department or its (over)reach (I'm way more conservative than most conservatives on this one; leave it to them to love the federal bureau with the most Nazified name), I have what I'll call "not a good reaction" when I read stuff like:

She was the first governor to call for National Guard troops to secure the U.S.-Mexico border

as if that's a good thing.

The entire department is also a dysfunctional mess; as Steve notes: "Since its creation in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration's management of the newest cabinet agency has been a terrible mess. (A few years ago, House Democrats released a report noting that DHS set 33 clear goals for itself—and failed to meet all of them.)"

And it just doesn't need a clean-up; it needs a clear justification: The rationale for the department's continued existence needs to be defined by its next chief pretty swiftly, or it should be dismantled and the smaller agencies it encompassed returned to their independent purviews.

So, having been forthright about my problems with the position itself, let me just briefly say that I generally quite like Gov. Napolitano. She was the first woman to serve as U.S. attorney in Arizona, the first woman to serve as state attorney general for Arizona, the first second woman elected as governor for Arizona, and she "first came to national prominence in 1991 when she served as a lawyer for Anita Hill in her sexual harassment case against then-nominee and later Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas." (Which, apart from anything else, should make it "interesting" for her to work with Joe Biden, who thought Hill was a liar.)

She's a trailblazer, and she's tough. I'm sure she can do the job.

Tagged as: obama, homeland security, dhs, arizona, janet napolitano

Melissa McEwan writes and edits the blog Shakespeare's Sister.