Joe Lieberman Susan Collins Subpoenas Eric Holder, Robert Gates

Senators Joe Leiberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) issued subpoenas to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. This is a "whoa!" moment, friends. Lieberman and Collins and others on the Senate Homeland Security Committee are fed up with their requests for information on the Fort Hood massacres being shoved somewhere among all the opulence of the Department of Justice, where if Holder has his way, it will never see the light of day.

Department of Justice

Lieberman and Collins want Major Nidal Hassan's personnel records, and specifically those categorized as "For Official Use Only." Not an extraordinary request unless those in possession of the personnel files want to keep Islamic terrorism underwraps. Afterall, the Muslim soldier gunned down 14, including one unborn child, while shouting allahu akhbar.

Pentagon officials are reviewing the subpoena before determining their next step, spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters Monday.

The Defense Department, he said, believes that it has responded to requests from Congress, "in keeping with the need to protect the integrity of the criminal prosecution and longstanding privacy practice.

The White House has not referred the killings an act of terror. In late February 2010, however, five-plus months after the shootings, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano finally went on the record and called it what it was: "violent Islamic terrorism....", but that was about the end of it. Now we have a ban on using the words Islamic terrorists, Islamic terrorism, and Obama

When the Pentagon report on the massacre came out, it failed to mention 'Islamic Terrorism' as the motivation for the killings:

[Lieberman] I was startled and really upset that in the whole report that Secretary [Togo] West and Adm. [Vern] Clark did on this Ft. Hood massacre, they never used ther tems radical Islamist extremism or violent Islamic terrorism."

The Homeland Security Committee wants to know who Hasan's superiors were, and what they knew about Hasan's radical beliefs. Rep. John Carter (R-TX) represents Texas' 31st Congressional District which includes Fort Hood. Carter said the Pentagon report was "sanitized."

People are afraid to speak out and label someone because they'll be accused of being a racist or accused of profiling or being prejudiced against a certain religion or race of people," Carter told Politico. "But in a time of national crisis, which I believe we are in, all identifiers must be be discussed.

How sad is it that the first subpoenas of the Obama administration are delivered to the U.S. Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense?