The Transportation Security Administration doesn’t have a permanent leader, nearly a year into Barack Obama’s term in office. Now it’s true that Obama didn’t nominate anybody until September, but seriously, you’d think that by now the Senate woulda gotten it’s act together. But it hasn’t. Know why? Because Jim DeMented, that blithering idiot senator from South Carolina, hates the American working class.

That’s right. Demented, who is, as you probably suspected, a Republican, has a hold on Obama’s nomination to fill the post, counterterrorism expert Erroll Southers. That’s an incredibly stupid rule of the Senate — which has a lot of really stupid rules — that allows a single senator to block presidential nominations for whatever reason s/he sees fit.

In Demented’s case, it’s his hatred of the American workers. Now, ol’ Jim can work up a good case of hate against anything that isn’t straight, white and ultra Christian, but he’s got a special thing about the working class.

The attempted terror attack in Detroit is a perfect example of why the Obama Administration should not unionize the TSA and allow our airline security decisions to be dictated by union bosses. I hope this incident will lead the President to re-think this policy and put the interests of American travelers ahead of organized labor.

I know! It makes absolutely no sense. But he seems to think it’s perfectly OK to stop the TSA in its tracks – with only an acting head, the agency doesn’t move very far forward – because he and his C Street buddies from The Family think unions are the stuff of the devil.

Demented – who, you may recall, was the guy who declared that health care reform would be Obama’s “Waterloo” – seems to think that Southers gets to make the decision on whether TSA can be unionized, never mind that that sort of decision is above his pay grade. Southers himself, who I’m sure would get to weigh in on the decision, has said that he’d listen to both sides of the argument before making any kind of decision. But Jimbo demands that Southers “clarify” his position, which I think in South Carolinianese means “declare that you hate unions and they can unionize TSA over your cold, dead body.”

Demented is also one of the Republicans practically wetting themselves in fear over last week’s miserable failure of a terrorist attack. My god, from all the attacks on Obama’s response to this thing you’d think that 19 guys had hijacked four airplanes and crashed them into the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field not long after the president ignored a report indicating al Qaeda wanted to use commercial airliners to attack the United States.

They’re really up in arms about how long it took for Obama to step before the cameras and say something after this incompetent moron blew his nuts off. I mean, jeez. This thing happened on Friday, and the president issued a statement, then waited while his peeps investigated and pulled some information together. Then, on Monday – what, 2 ½ days later? – he stepped out and spoke.

But lord, the conservatives are just freaking totally out. Here’s WaPo’s Jo-Ann Armao:

By staying in Hawaii, the president has sent the message that the situation really isn’t all that serious, that things can proceed just fine until he’s back. And isn’t it that kind of reasoning that emboldens our never-vacationing enemies into thinking Christmas Day is the perfect time for them to strike?

There is so much wrong with that I don’t even know where to start. Jeez, Jo-Ann. It’s not like he stayed on vacation at his Texas ranch for more than a week after Richard Reid tried to blow up an airliner with his shoes. Heck, Obama wasn’t so busy cuttin’ brush that it took him six days to comment, either. I seriously don’t see what the problem is.

Neither does Silvestre Reyes, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

In the days since the attempted terrorist attack on Flight 253, many people have seized on this issue for their own political gain, both to raise money and get media attention. This behavior is the blatant politicization of national security. It is unacceptable, and it needs to stop.

We are fortunate that this incident did not have a tragic conclusion. Now, we must identify the lessons learned from this event and rededicate ourselves to improving security screening and better facilitating intelligence sharing. As our Nation did after September 11, we should rally around the President and work constructively, rather than take political potshots.

Of course, the dude who was vice president on September 11, 2001, took six days to come up with something appropriately pithy to say about the current president.

He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of 9/11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war.

Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency: social transformation, the restructuring of American society.

Doesn’t that make you wanna just throw up? Frankly, this country could use a little social transformation, American society could use a little restructuring. But that wouldn’t fit with the world view of people like Dick Cheney, now, would it? People who want to hold the line on any real progress just so long as they can stay ahead of somebody else.

And Cheney, Mr. Five Deferments From Vietnam, the contempt he obviously holds for real Americans – either the real real Americans or the ones Sarah Palin thinks are the only real ones – oozes out of every word he utters. I don’t know about you, but Obama seems to me only too aware that we are at war – and doesn’t seem to be inclined to get us out of it any time soon, sadly enough.

The problem for Cheney, et al – when they say things like Obama “pretends we aren’t” at war – is that it sends them up the wall that this administration isn’t trying to scare the bejesus out of us. They send Hoekstra and King out to stir the pot, but the administration just holds it steady – investigate, analyze, figure out what went wrong and what we need to do to fix it.

That’s one thing I know I’m grateful for about the Obama administration. Aside from the stupid idea about keeping airline passengers sitting for the last hour – as if a terrorist would only try to bring down a plane on final approach – and some other ridiculous ideas, this administration has been fairly level- headed. Thoughtful, even.

I like that in an administration. It gives me a sense of security, that maybe, just maybe, we won’t go invade another Middle or Near Eastern country just because we’re pissed about something. We might bomb the shit out of some parts of one, maybe,  or just make sure that that particular country has what it needs to do the job itself. But invade? Nah. Not gonna happen.

All I can say is that –having lived through the preferred Republican response to tragedy — I know which one I’d prefer.

Hopefully the Obama administration will stay that focused and not give in to the hysteria the Republicans demand.

In the meantime, at least we have the utter ridiculousness of what passes for conservatism in this country to laugh at, although maybe laughing at people so handicapped by fear is cruel.

But what a way to end 2009. Except for the part about GW Bush leaving office and me hookin’ up with this blog, this year has pretty much sucked. I’d like to say it can’t get any worse, but I don’t know that for certain.

I do know that the extremists on the right will keep fighting to drag us as close to the dark ages as possible, that our own extremists will keep pushing for the whole book and be pissed to only get the first few chapters and that even if we don’t know it, we are moving forward.

For this moment, I’m satisfied with that. Tomorrow is another day, another year, another decade. Happy new year. May it improve on the last and bring us all the joy we so richly deserve.