The Daily Background

Uh, okay, this strikes me as just a teeny bit too transparent in the pandering department:

Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson says he would give higher homeland security funding considerations to states like Iowa because of the importance of food safety, agriculture and transportation to the nation’s well being.

Richardson said anti-terrorism funding should be risk-based, and he believes Iowa could be a top-10 state given its strategic location at the intersection of two major interstate systems and its role in supplying the nation with food and now energy.

I guess this wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Iowa happens to have the first caucus in the nation, would it governor? Maybe I’m just cynical, but this looks an awful lot like a candidate saying “look how important and endangered you are” to a state which really doesn’t have any high profile terrorist targets. Yes, absolutely, they have major agriculture infrastructure, but what can terrorists do? Attack one cornfield after another with pesticides? Fly a plane into a farmer’s rows of soybeans?

And to cap it off, the report I just quoted from (an Iowa news source) ends by saying “Richardson said too often such funding decisions are based on politics rather than logical risk assessments.” Logically, not politically, what risk is Iowa at for a terrorist attack?

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