Political offices have their own personalities, usually reflecting either the leadership or the party involved.  However, there is an unspoken rule and understanding that whatever you do or have done can and will affect your political boss.  In turn, the political leader has a consistent requirement to know pretty much everything about you and the people you commiserate with.  Factors of the relationship such as a romantic involvement, professional partnership or more importantly, marriage give the information a higher ranking.  Recently, information regarding Nevada legislator and party leader’s supposed lack of knowledge about an employee’s personal background reveals not only a risk to him, but also the nation.

Bassam Mahmoud Tarhini was not only an illegal alien who coerced now former Press Secretary and Immigration Reform Spokesperson Diana Tejada into marriage to stay in the United States, he was also a person of interest via the Oklahoma City Joint Terror Task Force. Thankfully deported recently, the reality to this aspect is not how it will hurt his campaign but how it challenges factors within legislative offices and how safe they are to handle the information given.

As a Jersey native, I recall well the McGreevey fiasco like it was yesterday.  What scared me the most however is how his “boyfriend” was given the top position of the state’s Homeland Security office. While these instances are independent in some ways, the threat to national security connects them.  A non-naturalized citizen was the top who as a result of his status did not have access to pertinent information was Director of Homeland Security for a state that is not only is close to already attacked locations but whose schools and other locations are endangered themselves.   Now, in turn, we have a press secretary who was also her former office’s spokesperson for immigration reform having connections to an investigated terror suspect by an illegal marriage.

The bottom line to this is the offices of our legislators, especially ones with high ranking position in the legislature such as Senator Reid must be examined by outside sources.  No “Internal Investigation” should ever be the end of something such as this which shows yet another internal threat to our nation.

Believe it or not, this is not an attack on the Democrats but instead a warning to the political world: Know who you have in your office.  Especially in this time of global war and threat, there needs to be more external visibility toward legislative offices of all levels to ensure not only that a debacle such as this does not occur again, but also for the safety of the nation which both of the involved leaders were tasked to protect.  Campaign ploy aside, Senator Reid and all legislators should take this instance as a wake up call not only for their sake, but the sake of their citizens.

0

Comments are closed.