Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mel Martinez has staked his campaign on the issue of terrorism and his close ties to President Bush.  Martinez attacks Democrat Betty Castor for action she took as president of the University of South Florida, when she suspended a professor who was suspected of ties to terrorist groups.  Although she took the toughest action allowed by law, Martinez said Castor didn’t do enough to deal with professor Sami Al-Arian.

While he attacks Castor, Martinez gives a pass to George W. Bush, who campaigned with the same suspected terrorist in 2000 and invited him to a high-level White House meeting in 2001.  According to the St. Petersburg Times, Martinez said it “didn’t matter” that a terrorist suspect under federal investigation attended a meeting with top Bush adviser Karl Rove on White House grounds.  And Martinez told WFLA-TV that Bush posing for a photo with the suspect was “irrelevant.”

Castor is hitting back with a TV ad on Martinez’s hypocrisy.  The ad is sure to put Martinez on the defensive over the signature issue of his campaign.  It raises the real issue for voters to decide:  Can we believe anything Mel Martinez says?  See the ad at:  www.bettynet.com/hypocrisy.

Martinez is well aware of the relationship between the Bush campaign and the suspected terrorist.  Consider the following evidence:

Martinez was co-chair of Bush’s Florida campaign when Bush campaigned with Al-Arian and posed for photos with him in Plant City.   Later, Al-Arian boasted that he delivered the margin of victory for Bush in Florida.

Martinez brushes this off as a “casual acquaintance.”  But columnist David Frum, who served as a special assistant and speechwriter to Bush, wrote in the National Review that the Bush campaign “actively courted” Al-Arian. 

On June 20, 2001, Al-Arian was briefed on Bush's faith-based agenda and other issues by Rove in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is adjacent to the White House. 

Also in 2001, Al-Arian’s son Abdullah received press coverage when the Secret Service ejected him from a meeting on the White House grounds.  Bush sent a personal letter of apology to the Al-Arians.

Closer to home, Gov. Jeb Bush’s controversial school voucher program gave $350,000 in taxpayer money to a private school founded by Al-Arian.  The school was named in a federal indictment for alleged terrorist connections.

Martinez ignores all of this in his attacks on Castor.  He prefers to play politics with terrorism, rather than answer the real question, posed by conservative columnist Frum:  “How was it that Sami al-Arian and his family were allowed to get as close as they did to Candidate and then President George W. Bush?”

For her part, Castor has proposed reforms to the intelligence system and a stronger role for local law enforcement in fighting terrorism (see www.bettynet.com  for details).  Castor:

Supports a National Intelligence Director with full authority and accountability for the nation’s intelligence-gathering. 

Proposes that local law enforcement be represented in a new Counter Terrorism Center in the White House, so that police and sheriff departments are part of the nation’s terrorism-fighting network – not excluded from it.

Would retain provisions of the Patriot Act that require intelligence agencies to share information with law enforcement to ensure timely action against suspected terrorists.  It took seven years for Al-Arian to be indicted because of restrictions on the sharing of intelligence information prior to 9/11.

Will work for more investments in port security to protect Florida communities – 95% of containers arriving at U.S. ports are not screened for weapons of mass destruction.

Supports more federal funding for police and fire departments that bear great responsibilities and cost in protecting homeland security.  Amazingly, Martinez called law enforcement officers “thugs” and said Florida doesn’t need “more men and women on the force.”

In the coming days, voters will hear more about Martinez’s hypocrisy – and many will conclude that Betty Castor is the candidate Florida can trust to protect homeland security.

Douglas Hattaway is a Florida native and a Democratic political consultant.  A frequent commentator on national television, he served as national spokesman for Gore/Lieberman 2000 and as communications director for Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle.  He is an adviser to Betty Castor’s Senate campaign.