Debbie Schlussel: Terrorism FBI Priority?: Latest Jimmy Hoffa Dig Says Otherwise
Not far from where I live is Machus Red Fox (now Andiamo's), the restaurant from which Teamster's President Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in 1975.
I like a good mob story as much as the next person. But living in Detroit, rumors and resulting dig-ups of back-yards looking for Jimmy Hoffa are as common as Paris Hilton bed partners. And equally as valuable to society. As in, not very.
They never find the former Teamster's Union president's body, either. It's the boy who cried wolf with a giant sinkhole of taxpayer dollars to go with it.
The FBI--nationally and in Detroit--repeatedly claims that its number one priority is fighting terrorism. So, why on earth is the FBI using tens of hundreds of agents--from Detroit, Chicago, AND Washington, DC--to scour a farm in suburban Detroit looking for Jimmy Hoffa's body, over the next two weeks. No expense is being spared by the feds, and it is an incredible waste of resources. FIFTY(!) FBI agents are digging up the farm to look for Hoffa. It's absurd.
We predict that the FBI will fail to find Hoffa's body during this latest search. But, even if they do find his body, what purpose is served--30 years later--in doing so? Even then, it will be nothing more than tax dollar waste in the name of Cosa Nostra folklore.
There can be only one purpose in this Jimmy Hoffa exhumation circus: media coverage, PR, and face-time for the FBI and its Special Agent in Charge Daniel Roberts. This whole affair is a symptom of his unquenched edifice complex. We've written about Roberts and his claims that terrorism is his office's number one priority--a phony excuse to get taxpayers to shell out $65 million dollars in his empire-building conquest for a new Detroit FBI building.
But clearly, terrorism is NOT the priority. Or there wouldn't be the time, the money, the many agents to spare, going over every inch of the Milford Farm in the quest for the Holy Grail of Hoffa's rotted corpse. It's a sexy story, but worthless in terms of justice served. It's not the job of taxpayers to fund the FBI's wish to superimpose itself on "The Godfather" long after that age has ended.
What is a bigger threat to our safety, today: another 9/11 attack/nuclear weapons from Iran OR the deceased Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone, Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano, and assorted other now-elderly or -dead mobsters who might have assassinated Hoffa?
Since the FBI doesn't know the correct answer to that, we should all be worried.
The dissapearance of Jimmy Hoffa allegedly resulted in a fatal trip to a salami factory in Cleveland, the end zone in Giants Stadium, underneath a backyard swimming pool in central Michigan, a home in Detroit, and now a farm in a Detroit suburb. But they are all fantasy, including--likely the last one. What happened to Jimmy Hoffa? Who cares. It's an endless chase with no pay-off even if there is a pay-off.
The Jimmy Hoffa investigation should have ended. Far too much time has been spent on it. And it's time for it to be relegated, forever, to American mob mythology or the professionals who write "The Sopranos."
America cannot afford to solve every mystery no matter how much desired media storm it creates for Dan Roberts and the Federal Bureau of Irrelevant Investigation.
Posted by Debbie on May 19, 2006 01:39 PM to Debbie Schlussel