Fmr. Bush Official on TSA Vote: ‘We’ve Got to Move on Beyond the Union Issues’

ABC News’ Teddy Davis reports: A former Bush national security official told ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” on Tuesday that Republicans should “move on beyond the union issues” which are currently being used by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., to block an up-or-down vote on President Obama’s pick to head the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). “We’ve got to move on beyond the union issues; they will get worked out, it’s an issue that the Department of Homeland Security has been working out since it was created six years ago,” said former Bush National Security official Gordon Johndroe. Watch it HERE. Johndroe, a longtime Bush aide who served the former president as spokesman for the National Security Council, thinks DeMint’s parliamentary maneuver is opening up Republicans a “little bit” to criticism from Democrats and predicted that the Senate would move “fairly quickly” to confirm the new TSA chief once Congress comes back into session given “the concern with aviation security right now and also to limit any potential criticism.” Two Senate committees have given their bipartisan blessing to Erroll Southers, a former FBI special agent and a counterterrorism expert who is Obama’s nominee. But DeMint has put a hold on a full Senate vote, saying he wants additional testimony to clarify Southers’s stand on unionizing the TSA, a policy shift Democrats support. Appearing on ABC’s “Top Line” following Johndroe, Republican strategist Kevin Madden predicted that the TSA appointment fight take a backseat to a broader election-year contrast on national security. “Republicans are not going to worry about TSA appointments and who is chairing what and whose getting what confirmation and instead it’s going to be about big things,” said Madden. “It’s going to be about the fundamental different worldview between Republicans and Democrats on how we prosecute the war on terror.” Watch it HERE. DeMint has responded to criticism of his decision to put a hold on Obama’s nominee by saying that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s alleged attempted attack in the skies above Detroit “is a perfect example of why the Obama administration should not unionize the TSA.” In his written statement, DeMint explained that if organized labor were involved in airport security, union bosses would have the power “to veto or delay future security improvements at our airports.” Rather than holding up the vote on the basis of union issues, Johndroe thinks the GOP should push for new aviation security measures. “We have to keep on moving forward and installing additional machines and having more personnel and doing more behavioral analysis to try and prevent what happened last week from happening again,” said Johndroe. Appearing on “Top Line” from ABC’s studios in downtown Washington, D.C., Johndroe criticized Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for initially responding to the “Christmas Day bomber” incident by saying “the system worked.” “The system only worked if the system includes a Dutchman on every flight that’s going to tackle a potential terrorist,” said Johndroe. Since telling CNN’s “State of the Union” that “the system worked” on Sunday, Napolitano has sought to clarify her remarks. Appearing Monday on NBC’s “Today,” Napolitano said, “Our system did not work in this instance . . . No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is underway.” Although Johndroe thinks President Obama should have spoken out more quickly on the Christmas Day bomber incident, he praised the president for the recent troop build-up in Afghanistan and his stated commitment to pursue terrorists around the world. “I think there are a lot of similarities” between the Obama Doctrine and the Bush Doctrine, said Johndroe.  “Sending additional troops into Afghanistan is something President Bush has started doing a couple of years ago. The situation on the ground changed so President Obama’s has had to send more. I think once they got into office, once President Obama became President, they realized that the nature of the threat was just global and the threat level was extremely high around the world, that the terrorists remain at war with us and that they were going to have to deal with it in a way similar to the Bush administration.” Tuesday’s edition of “Top Line” was co-anchored by ABC News correspondent David Kerley and ABC News’ deputy political director Teddy Davis. ABC News’ Kim Berryman contributed to this report.