We are a serious country governed by serious people

With all the furor and scrutiny surrounding Homeland Security and the TSA over the failed Detroit bombing, you would think that the heads of both branches would be in for some criticism. Of course DHS head Janet Napolitano has been taking fire over her contention that "the system worked", but why haven't we heard anything from or about the head of the TSA for their failures? Oh, that's right, there is no head of the TSA and there hasn't been for nearly a year. That's probably a good idea, it doesn't seem like an important position.

An attempt to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day would be all-consuming for the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration — if there were one.

The post remains vacant because Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has held up President Barack Obama's nominee in opposition to the prospect of TSA workers joining a labor union.

Yeah, who needs to worry about airline security and the leadership of the organization behind most of it when there's a cheap political attack to make on the concept of unions? I'm sure complex agencies like the TSA run themselves and it's best that there's no boss type figure there to confuse everyone with uniform goals, policies, implementation, or structure. Hell, if that happens you might get confusion and some nut with C4 in his Jockey's might be able to slip through. No, thankfully Jim DeMint is there to stop the confusion that a properly run organization can cause.

Thankfully these kind of forward thinking and meaningful Seante holds are common practice on Obama Administration nominations. Out of some 200 open nominations only 75 have gotten past delaying tactics in committees to face the delaying tactics of the Senate floor. But you must understand that the reason we didn't have something like a US Trade Rep for a long time (and in this economy who needs one) is for very important reasons of principle.

One of those finally approved was Miriam Sapiro, who had become the Obama administration’s prime example of stalled nominations since being chosen in April to be a deputy United States trade representative. Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, put a hold on the confirmation of Ms. Sapiro, an Internet policy consultant, to try to pressure the trade representative’s office to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization against Canada over a law that bans cigarettes with candy flavors.

See! Candy flavored cigarettes. Whining about unions. Important shit.

I'm just glad we have serious individuals like Jim Bunning and Jim DeMint out there looking out for this country in a serious manner. A properly run government and properly run government agencies aren't important, candy flavored cigarettes are. I'm just glad someone finally had the balls to stand up and say so.