A bold headline, to be sure. But not really a false one. I mentioned this yesterday, but McClatchy adds more detail to the fact that Jim DeMint has a hold on the nomination of a well-qualified applicant to head the Transportation Security Admnistration, preventing the agency from having a leader at a time when new security measures are being installed in the wake of the failed underpants bombing.

An attempt to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day would be all-consuming for the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration — if there were one.

The post remains vacant because Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has held up President Barack Obama’s nominee in opposition to the prospect of TSA workers joining a labor union.

As al Qaida claimed responsibility Monday for the thwarted attack and President Barack Obama made a public statement about it, Democrats urged DeMint to drop his objection and allow quick confirmation of nominee Erroll Southers, a counterterrorism expert, when the Senate reconvenes in three weeks.

Southers is a former special agent of the FBI, the associate director of USC’s Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events, and the LAX Airport Police Department assistant chief for homeland security and intelligence. In other words, he’s pretty much who you would want running TSA. But he might set up a union for workers who make as little as $23,600 a year in a thankless job where they have to be 100% perfect every day.

Bennie Thompson, the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, is among Democrats calling for an immediate confirmation in the new year.

Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said that the TSA nominee’s confirmation is a crucial step in preventing another attempted terrorist attack such as the one that occurred Christmas Day.

“The TSA needs a permanent administrator,” Thompson said in a statement. “Erroll Southers, an experienced, highly-qualified nominee, continues to be held up in the Senate by someone who obviously puts process ahead of progress.” [...]

“If TSA is to become the kind of nimble, responsive organization the American people deserve in times like this, it will need a Senate-confirmed administrator,” he said. “If nothing else, the events of last week highlighted this lack of leadership.”

This could spark more interest in the Senate hold process, which allows any member of the body to arbitrarily delay a nomination indefinitely, often for ideological reasons or in exchange for unrelated legislative goodies. DeMint is at fault here, but the abuse of the hold process is just as much the culprit.