Sure, it was a mistake, it turned out "like a lumpy pudding." But "yet another reorganization would drive everyone bonkers."
You might say it's the spy world's version of General Motors: too big to fail, but soon to be under new management.
It needs "an experienced, first-rate manager" to run it, Ignatius wrote, somebody like ... Warren Buffett.
Somebody, in the words of one of those ubiquitous "former top intelligence officials," who is "less interested in briefing the president in the morning than in ensuring that the community has the best tools and processes to make the PDB [President's Daily Brief] a world-class product."
But first, the incoming president can help himself immensely if he devotes some bandwidth to figuring out what he wants U.S. intelligence to do.
"More than any part of the government," Ignatius wrote, "the intelligence community needs good management, but that requires more clarity about the mission."
The problem is, nobody wants the DNI job. One intelligence professional under consideration for a top post told me that he was praying that the phone wouldn't ring with Obama on the other end asking him to take it.
The pool of eligible candidates for it, meanwhile, has been steadily evaporating.
CIA veterans don't want yet another military man at the DNI helm (and certainly not another uniform running their own agency).
Human rights activists are blackballing anyone remotely connected to post-9/11 renditions and interrogation methods.
Antiwar and civil rights critics are evil-eyeing anyone connected to the faulty Iraq WMD intelligence or warrantless wiretaps.
And now it appears that official contacts with nasty governments is grounds for strangling a nominee in his cradle.
But just the possibility that the former Pacific Commander could be tapped has roused the ire of human rights activists in Indonesia, according to
Radio Australia.
Blair is accused of cozying up to the Indonesia regime while it was slaughtering people in East Timor.
"The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network, or ETAN, has urged the new administration not to appoint Admiral Blair, citing his years as Pacific Commander, when ETAN says he actively worked to reinstate military assistance and deepen ties to Indonesia's military despite its ongoing human rights violations in East Timor and consistent record of impunity," Radio Australia reported.
Is that enough to drop-kick Blair's chances? Just the hint of such trouble has already torpedoed
John Brennan and jeopardized the chances of a number of candidates for top intelligence posts, including at least two on the
Associated Press's list of frontrunners for the CIA job: Steve Kappes, the agency's current No. 2, John McLaughlin, an interim CIA chief after George Tenet resigned, and Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who now heads a House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence.
So the list keeps expanding.
Not in the A.P.'s top five, but mine, is a senior CIA veteran who could probably escape such censure: J
ack Devine, a former head of the agency's clandestine service.
Qualification number one: he left the CIA before the Sept. 11 attacks, so he can't be tarred with faulty Iraq intelligence, renditions or water boarding.
Two: He dissed the Iraq invasion, calling it a diversion from other critical missions.
"Iraq has been a great drain on the intelligence world," he
said in 2004. "The notion that you could support a military initiative in Iraq, combat worldwide terrorism, and cover other critical issues was wrong."
Three: He's been where Obama needs experienced help. Early on he ran the CIA's covert program to oust the Russians from Afghanistan.
Four: He's given a lot of thought to what's wrong with the DNI,
saying it "has become what intelligence professionals feared it would: an unnecessary bureaucratic contraption with an amazingly large staff."
Congress, he urged, needs to take another look at the monster it created.
Just don't send him there. Jack Devine belongs at CIA.
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Comments
Yes Pat, and Tomasky also had a good explanation for the governor endorsement:
"Take this question of why Obama endorsed Blago for reelection in 2006. Well, Obama endorsed him because he was the sitting governor of his own party, and a freshman senator just isn't going to not endorse an incumbent governor from his own party on the basis of media speculation and swirling allegations. He just isn't. Anybody who knows anything about politics knows this....
Yes it would be nice if the world were a different place and people from X political party withheld their endorsements from candidate Y because they considered him corrupt or potentially corrupt. But it doesn't happen. In my 25 years of covering politics, I've seen it happen once, when Rudy Giuliani refused to endorse George Pataki for governor of New York in 1994 and instead backed Democrat Mario Cuomo. It was stunning. And, in that instance, lots of people asked, "What the hell is this guy doing?" So you can't win either way sometimes."
I thought it was a good, fair article and he looks like he's on Obama's side, which we all should be.
ps
Pat, I saw a little 'grow your own' pirate, in the dollar section up front at Target yesterday. One of those little sponge things that you add water to and it grows. It was a tiny little pirate, and it made me think of you. :)
Posted by: chloe
| December 12, 2008 7:35 AM
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