And you thought Betty McCollum couldn’t do any worse than deliberately leaving out “under God” while leading the Pledge of Allegiance in the House in April 2002.  No, my friends, this is Minnesota we’re talking about here.  We’ve put Jesse Ventura in charge of the state and sent Al Franken to Washington.  As Jack Nicholson once said in As Good As It Gets, “Sell crazy someplace else — we’re all stocked up here.”  The Representative from MN-04 declared during her midterm election debate with Teresa Collett that al-Qaeda no longer poses a threat to the United States.  No … seriously:

No longer than an hour after watching this late yesterday, I stumbled across this story from ABC News, which explains to everyone not in Congress that not only is AQ still a threat to the US, it may be an even bigger threat than ever:

American Al Qaeda may now pose the most clear and present threat to the homeland, top government sources tell ABC News.

Americans have risen high in Al Qaeda’s leadership and are now helping shape strategy for attacks on the U.S.

One source told ABC that it is clear these homegrown Al Qaeda want to spill American blood.

American Al Qaeda may be even more dangerous than foreign fighters, sources say, because they know the nation’s psyche and its “soft” targets, and its American recruits can often move about the country freely. In fact, during a speech to the top police chiefs in the country Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano shared a stark assessment:

“The stark reality that I shared with Congress recently – and that I’m sharing with you today – is that we at the Department of Homeland Security, and I venture to say the FBI as well, are operating under the premise that individuals prepared to carry out terrorist acts are already in the country, and may carry out these acts of violence with little or no warning,” Napolitano said.

Hey, you know who might want to know that?  Your Congressional Representative. It might help to have an informed person representing Minnesota’s 4th CD, rather than someone who apparently gets her security briefings from Dennis Kucinich.  Does Betty McCollum pay any attention at all while in Washington?  It’s not as if Janet Napolitano and Robert Mueller have kept this a secret from anyone.

First we have Senator Mark Dayton who runs away from Washington DC because he claims no one’s safe, and then we have Betty McCollum telling us that the organization that the Obama administration says is the gravest national-security threat to the US poses no danger at all.  There has to be a rational middle someplace.   Perhaps 4th CD voters will send Betty home and send Teresa in her place.

Note: Just in case anyone thinks this is taken out of context, watch the entire question and answers from all three candidates in their entirety here.  McCollum’s answer comes at the 3:20 mark, if you’d like to skip ahead.