Republican Rep: Napolitano is making Obama ‘look bad’

Republican Congressman Michael Burgess sharply criticized Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and said she should step down because she is making her boss, President Obama, look bad.

Burgess, of Texas, was responding to the release of a memo from Napolitano’s department that warned of a threat to the country from right-wing “extremists.” The report also said that such groups could try to recruit military veterans. He is one of a growing number of Republicans that have called for Napolitano’s ouster.

“It really does defy gravity in so many ways,” Burgess said of the release of the report on MSNBC just now. “And, look, I was one of the first ones to call for Michael Brown, the former head of FEMA, to resign when I thought he was making his boss, former President Bush, look bad. I think Janet Napolitano is making her boss look bad.”

Burgess also said that the Napolitano is, essentially, a distraction for the administration.

“This administration prides itself on its ability to communicate at a level that perhaps wasn’t present the last eight years,” he said. “Now you have the major head of what is supposed to be an apolitical federal agency making these kinds of statements and essentially throwing the administration off message.”

jeremy.jacobs@digital-stage.thehill.com