Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is being slammed by an Ohio congressman whose constituency is at the center of a devastating train derailment.
On Saturday, GOP Rep. Bill Johnson spoke with Fox News about the Feb. 3 disaster in which a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed near the town of East Palestine, Ohio, resulting in the town and surrounding area being polluted with toxic chemicals.
Johnson told Fox News that the residents of his constituency, which includes East Palestine, remain concerned and anxious as they are not getting straight answers about the disaster. “There are lots and lots of questions,” he said.
He also slammed the railway company, Norfolk Southern, which was responsible for the disaster, for not showing up to a town hall meeting for the community to ask those questions. “The rail company, Norfolk Southern, did not show up at the town hall meeting last night for them to be able to ask those questions.”
But he saved his most damning criticism for Joe Biden’s transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg. He slammed Buttigieg for not showing his face following the disaster, giving him an “F” for his response to the situation.
“I give Secretary Buttigieg an F. I mean, he hasn’t shown up,” Johnson said, “How can you be evaluated if you haven’t shown up? So, gets an F.”
Johnson is absolutely right to call out Buttigieg for his seeming lack of concern for the people of East Palestine. After all, he is the secretary of transportation, and the disaster now unfolding in Ohio was caused by a train, which falls under his department.
When there is a massive disaster like this involving transportation that is making headlines, one would assume that the transportation secretary would immediately try to figure out what’s going on, try to mitigate the damage and find ways to ensure that this does not happen again.
But instead, Buttigieg has been an absolute no-show and has shown seemingly no concern for the people now affected by this dangerous situation unfolding on his watch.
At the same time, however, this is to be expected. Buttigieg, remember, was not selected by Biden to be transportation secretary because of his abilities, but rather because he is gay. In essence, Buttigieg was purely a diversity hire.
Despite the moral implications of having a man who lives such an obviously sinful lifestyle in one of the top positions in the nation, there is the fact that Buttigieg has shown himself time and time again to be an incompetent transportation secretary.
His tenure has experienced crisis after crisis regarding transportation in the nation. He was at the helm during the supply chain shortage, the railway strikes, massive flight delays before Christmas and a technical issue in the Federal Aviation Administration that grounded all flights last month.
Now, Buttigieg is dealing with not only the train derailment in East Palestine, but potentially dangerous derailments in other parts of the nation as well.
So, I think it is safe to say that not only should we give Buttigieg an “F” for his handling of this latest crisis, but also for his entire tenure so far as transportation secretary.
Buttigieg was not hired for his merits, but rather so the Biden administration could tick off diversity boxes. The results of that strategy are proving disastrous for the nation.
The people of East Palestine — and the American people at large — probably all feel that it is time for Buttigieg to go and for the Biden administration to replace him with someone more competent.
But, then again, given that competency has not exactly been a hallmark of the Biden administration so far, maybe it is better for him to stick around, because his replacement would probably be even worse.
