Crazy Pete Hoekstra Writes a Letter (Again)

Given the news that the National Security Council (aka John Brennan) had decided to brief only leaders (of both houses of Congress, plus “appropriate” committees) on the Nidal Hasan investigation, I decided to check to see how Crazy Pete responded.

Google News suggests he hasn’t–yet–run to the press bitching about the briefings. Instead, Crazy Pete and his fellow Republicans have sent Nancy Pelosi a letter demanding a quick investigation into Nidal Hasan.

Now, the letter is interesting on a number of accounts–starting with the fact that it’s not designed to accomplish anything aside from grand-standing. Think Congress needs to conduct an inquiry into Nidal Hasan? Fine, go to the relevant Chair–like, maybe, the Chair of the committee in question, Silvestre Reyes–and talk about who to accomplish an investigation. But you don’t just write the Speaker and ask her to have Congress (all of Congress? Really?) conduct an investigation–unless your sole goal is grand-standing.

But I’m also interested in the language Crazy Pete uses to grand-stand.

As Members of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, we believe that even the limited information made available to date–both classified and unclassified–strongly indicates that the circumstances surrounding the shootings at Fort Hood require immediate and thorough investigation.

The records appears to establish significant intelligence and intelligence sharing failures that must be reviewed and addressed immediately to ensure that the American people receive the fullest protection against potential attacks. We strongly disagree with the suggestion that Congress should abdicate its Constitutional oversight and fact-finding responsibilities in this regard. Extensive precedent has established that oversight in no way interferes with concurrent criminal prosecution–particularly where, as here, prosecutors have no responsibility for the even more critical task of ensuring the effectiveness of our intelligence community. The future security of over 300 million Americans is far more pressing than after-the-fact investigation of one man.

Sure, there’s all that tedious Crazy Pete hallmarks, such as insinuating that Pelosi (or Reyes) made a suggestion–abdicating their Constitutional oversight role. There’s the way Crazy Pete ignores the obvious precedent of the Iran-Contra investigation, in which a Congressional investigation led partly by Richard Bruce Cheney ended up threatening the legal investigation into the matter.

And then there’s this sentence, which for the life of me I can’t understand at all.

The future security of over 300 million Americans is far more pressing than after-the-fact investigation of one man.

Is Crazy Pete saying that Congress, with almost no investigators, will somehow move more quickly than the Defense Department investigators? Is he suggesting that bringing Hasan to justice just isn’t that important? And how is investigating the very pressing issue of defending 300 million going to do any good, until they actual learn what happened with Hasan?

So, to answer my own question, Crazy Pete has gone in a matter of days from bitching about a delay in briefings to–at a time when briefings have actually been delayed–going silent on that point and instead demanding immediate investigations, not briefings.

Crazy Pete is weird.