Say No to Sycophantism

This from today's WSJ:

"Perhaps this shrinking of the CIA is necessary if the agency has become as politicized and ungovernable as it sometimes seems from the outside. In that case, Mr. Bush would be better off shutting Langley altogether and rebuilding an intelligence service from the ground up under the DNI. This being Washington, where inertia rules, that isn't likely to happen. So we are probably left with the hope that Mr. Bush will choose a new director who can work with Mr. Negroponte to make the agency more effective." <http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008344>

This is an idiotic notion. Should we rebuild the CIA from the ground up so that whatever does work should also stop working, just like FEMA? When will these people realize that the answer to our intelligence problems does NOT lie in creating new agencies and getting rid of old ones? So in this case, we should be thankful to Beltway inertia because without it this administration would ensure that the crap hits the fan more rapidly than it already does.

As far choosing a new director goes, we've already seen in this administration that power lies between 3 or 4 people [cheney, rummy, rove, rice], and the remainder of the officials are window dressing. Unless this changes, appointing a new director, no matter who he happens to be, is going to be a moot issue.