Breitbart’s Sebastian Gorka Is The Fear He Wants Us To Feel

Breitbart.com National Security Editor Dr. Sebastian Gorka was arrested trying to board a flight at Reagan National Airport with a 9mm handgun in his carry-on bag. According to the Washington Post, Transportation Security Agency personnel spotted the firearm as it passed through a security checkpoint x-ray machine and summoned airport police, who apprehended Gorka without incident.

Gorka’s voice can be heard on an audio recording of ‘Groundswell,’ the highly-connected right wing lobbying group which contrived the IRS ‘targeting scandal’ as well as the Benghazi Select Committee, as they met in 2013 to discuss those projects at the Washington, DC headquarters of Judicial Watch. A professor at the Marine Corps University, he is also a frequent lecturer at West Point and a regular Fox News guest. As you might expect, Gorka is prone to spouting alarmist and reactionary talking points, especially on issues of terrorism. In fact, you might say that he’s one of the foremost figures demanding to make the ‘clash of civilizations’ official:

• Last November, Gorka told Megyn Kelly that the United States has been “fighting jihadis since the Barbary Wars 200 years ago,” thus lending his air of authority to the error-riddled contents of a chain email
• This month, Gorka dismissed the release of four Americans held in Iran, saying that President Obama “gave away the farm for a Starbucks gift card” by using diplomacy instead of loud, angry noises
• Gorka regularly minimizes the threat of right wing domestic terrorism, which has killed more Americans since 9/11 than any other kind, by complaining that attention to homegrown extremists is really a political attack on conservatives
• Displaying zero military acumen, Gorka would forego any opening to divide and conquer Islamist enemies in the Middle East and instead dismisses the differences between Shi’a and Sunni extremists as “Coke versus Pepsi“
• Gorka claims that the most recent nothingburger about emails sent to Hillary Clinton that were later classified and kept on her server is “the .44 magnum of smoking guns“
• Asked how he would defeat Daesh, Gorka told Fox News Business that he would send more Americans to be embedded with “the good-guy Sunnis” who “are on our side”

At the moment, it’s not clear what possessed Gorka to pack a handgun in his carry-on. Did he suppose that his PhD and blustery opinions would somehow serve as a special license to break the law? Does he secretly fantasize about being a hero during an airplane hijacking? Was he trying to demonstrate how ineffective he thinks the TSA is so that he could concern-troll them on a future Fox News interview? Or is he just stupid?

Rest assured that BU will stay on top of this story.

UPDATE: Dr. Gorka has belatedly responded to my original tweet on this story.

@OsborneInk @ashleyhalsey3rd Incorrect. Made a simple mistake. Got a ticket. Then caught my flight. Happy now?

— Sebastian Gorka (@SebGorka) February 3, 2016