Another Victory Over Terrorism

Well, we may not have been able to find Osama bin Laden, Sadaam Hussein, or weapons of mass destruction, but we're succeeding in the fight against terrorism on another front: smashing unions.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is considering plans to exempt from collective bargaining 600 inspectors who have been represented by a union for more than 30 years.

ATF employees are represented by the National Treasury Employees Union, which is widely known to have a close personal relationship with Al Qaeda.

Or at least that's what Tom Ridge and Dick Cheney seem to think. And they know stuff.

Of course, this wasn't the first victory of the Bushniks over the evil federal unions

In January 2002, lawyers for the NTEU and the Justice Department were in Miami for a hearing on whether the union could organize assistant U.S. attorneys in three Florida cities. Before the union lawyers got to argue their case, President Bush issued an executive order citing national security concerns and kicking unions out of U.S. attorney offices and four other divisions of Justice.

Union leaders were outraged. Previous presidents had removed unions from federal agencies by citing national security concerns, but the labor leaders said no president had stopped litigation over collective bargaining rights by invoking national security.

Paging John Sweeney. Your one-way flight to Guantanemo is ready to board.