Where the "I smell a rat" comes in is the carefully-worded phrases about doing these things as a cost-reduction measure. This tactic is one of the oldest tricks in the book here inside the Beltway. Chertoff is annoyed that his budget has been cut. So, he floats a trial balloon like this where he basically threatens to cut the meat from his agency because Congress has cut his budget. He sent out his talking head to make these remarks just to see who pushes back and how far they do.

His goal is to get an outcry from Congress along the lines of "You CAN'T do this!!!" in order for Congress to see the error of their ways and restore most of his budget cut. If Congress does nothing, he's not on the hook to actually follow through with these threats -- and that's what these are -- threats.

I find it interesting that he did this during the August recess. Staffers are in town, but the members aren't. So, he's not going to get a reaction. I guess his motivation was perhaps to get revenge by ruining a few vacations.

Even if this were real, I do not believe that the DHS/TSA culture will permit change this radical to happen. Just one of these changes would take 6-12 months to implement.

My recommendation is that we don't read too much into this proposal. It's simply the political process at work.