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Rachel Maddow asks why during the week that Osama bin Laden was killed, the Sunday morning show producers decided to bring on one Bushie after another to sit at the grown-up table and give their opinion on the matter.

If that question sounds familiar for our readers here it's because just like this past Sunday, our own Nicole Belle asks that same question pretty much every week when we cover the Sunday morning bobblehead shows here at C&L. I wonder if David Gregory's producer was watching? It would be nice to get him or her to answer Rachel's question.

I'd love to see Rachel get Meet the Press, but she probably couldn't get any Republicans to come on with her, or not very many of them anyway. Unlike David Gregory, she actually asks follow up questions to people who come on the air and try to lie to her.

Transcript below the fold:

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Unlike Chris Matthews who wants to pretend this is not what goes on daily in D.C., Cenk Uygur goes through what is pretty much standard operating procedure in Washington; lobbyists influencing legislation, the revolving door between holding office and working for corporate America and the influence campaign donations have on our politicians.

And the end result, we have the TSA using useless scanners that violate our privacy and don't detect explosives or putting up with overly intrusive pat-downs.

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No big surprise here. Republicans want to use the recent outrage over the aggressive screening tactics being used by the TSA at airports as an excuse to privatize it. As Steve Benen noted this weekend, that of course doesn't solve the problem and just brings with it a whole new set of concerns.

Mica is poised to become chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, so he'll be in a position to advance this issue.

There are a variety of angles to consider here. Note, for example, that private companies that stand to benefit from privatization also happen to be generous campaign contributors to Mica's re-election campaign.

Even more importantly, several domestic airports already use private screeners, but it's still the TSA that establishes mandatory security standards. If Mica or other Republicans want to have a conversation about whether those security measures are appropriate, that's fine. But whether those doing the screening are public employees or private contractors doesn't change the standards themselves. Selling this as some sort of cure-all for frustrated travelers is silly.

As Josh Marshall joked yesterday, "Watching cable TV this morning it seems like the new idea is that this would all be better if private sector workers rather than government employees were inspecting Americans' crotches, boobs, etc."

But via email, reader V.S. noted another angle that's worth paying attention to: legal restrictions. Existing standards, as written by federal officials, have to take constitutional issues into consideration. If Mica scrapped the TSA and let airports hire Blackwater-style private security to screen passengers, it's easy to imagine legal safeguards -- against racial profiling, for example -- suddenly being cast aside.

Mica of course also blew off accusations that any of the companies that provide airport security that have made campaign contributions to him might be influencing his push to privatize airport security. As News 4 in Jacksonville noted:

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Thom Hartmann talks to the ACLU's Michael German about the knee jerk reaction to the Christmas Underwear Bomber and airport security and whether these scanners that will invade our privacy are not meant to keep anyone safer when flying but make someone money instead.

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As Steve Benen points out, it seems Michael Chertoff along with The Washington Post are having some conflict of interest problems--PAGE 7 VS PAGE 15:

The Washington Post reports today, on page A7, that Michael Chertoff, the former DHS secretary, has been playing a little fast and loose with the public trust.

Since the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the federal government to buy more full-body scanners for airports.

What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. The relationship drew attention after Chertoff disclosed it on a CNN program Wednesday, in response to a question.

An airport passengers' rights group on Thursday criticized Chertoff, who left office less than a year ago, for using his former government credentials to advocate for a product that benefits his clients.

"Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the public has placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain from the sale of full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected this particular type of explosive," said Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, which opposes the use of the scanners.

As Steve notes, that same paper allowed Chertoff a 736-word op-ed calling for expanding the whole-body imaging technology. No, it's not just you Steve. There is a huge disconnect between pages A15 and A7. It seems the Washington Post has as bad a case of dissociative identity disorder as the rest of our corporate media.

At least Campbell Brown bothered to point out the conflict during the CNN interview. That doesn't explain why they still brought him on when they know he's going to profit from the technology being expanded.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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