Give Janet Napolitano her due. The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security has taken to heart Barack Obama’s campaign pledges of “change” and “hope.” Unfortunately, the changes she has effected seem generally to be to dismantle sensible Bush-era internal security policies and practices, replacing them with politically correct nostrums and generally inadequate programs.

The cumulative effect of such change can only be to give hope to our terrorist foes. If this keeps up, Ms. Napolitano’s post should be renamed the Homeland Insecurity Department. Consider the following illustrative examples:

Secretary Napolitano has been at the cutting edge of the Obama administration’s efforts to define away the conflict in which we are engaged. Her most notable contribution has been to replace the term “terrorism” with “man-caused disasters.” She claims it reflects her desire to “move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.” Sadly, such gambits predictably have the effect of further confusing the public about the gravity – let alone the source – of the dangers that her department was established to counter.

Speaking of dangers, a report recently released by Ms. Napolitano’s staff warned of the threat posed by veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and other “right-wing extremists.” This defamation is all the more egregious for its coming on the heels of a no-less-benighted Bush administration lexicological exercise – one that concealed the role of what authoritative Islam calls “Shariah” in spawning terrorism.

Then, there is the problem posed for homeland security by untold numbers of individuals illegally in the United States. A few months ago, Secretary Napolitano suspended workplace raids aimed at apprehending employees not legally here. Her department then freed and gave work permits to twenty-seven of those previously arrested on her watch. While she authorized resumption of the raids last week, their principal target reportedly will be American employers, rather than the illegals they hire. It is not clear whether the net effect of the Napolitano program will be to discourage or incentivize aliens to try to penetrate our borders.

Here’s another straw in that wind: The Obama administration has submitted a budget to Congress that would deny state and local governments currently incarcerating illegal immigrants the federal help they have heretofore received to defray the associated costs. If allowed to stand, the inevitable result would be to release into the general population thousands of possibly dangerous aliens, compounding our homeland insecurity problem.

There is another group of dangerous aliens Mr. Obama seems determined to unleash on the American people: Ms. Napolitano’s organization may have to cope in the near future with seventeen Chinese Uigars trained in terrorism in Afghanistan. They have been held in recent years at Guantanamo Bay and reportedly are slated for release in Alexandria, Virginia. In addition, although legislators of both parties are increasingly voicing objections, the President’s decision to close “Gitmo” without a plan for its detainees seems likely, all other things being equal, to result in many of them coming to penitentiaries here – at who knows what risk to the American people? Continued...