Draining the Swamp

Michael Ledeen asks So How Come Nobody�s Been Fired Yet? The answer is that Bush doesn't believe in firing people except for disloyalty.

There's saying that when you're up to your ass in alligators, it's not the time to worry about how to drain the swamp. Now, I submit, we have the alligators under control, and the swamp still needs to be drained, wetlands or no wetlands. Nevertheless, I don't think that it makes any sense to can all the people it took so long to select and get through the Senate approval circus.

I think all of us were shocked by how feckless our secuity apparatus turned out to be, but the problem seems pretty obvious. Do we really need a bunch of Congressional Hearings to tell us that the CIA, NSA and FBI need to share information and that there needs to be a mechanism for "connecting the dots," the worst cliche since "the terrorists will have won."

A few preliminary points:

1. This is not a coverup, nor a potent political issue for the Democrats to use this fall. Let them try and they will be reminded that there were plenty of warnings ignored by the previous administration.

2. Hearings seldom yield useful solutions. Remember the great reforms we got after Watergate? Neither do I.

3. There aren't a whole lot more Donald Rumsfelds around to hand this to. The problems aren't hard to see. Let's let Ridge, Mueller and their counterparts at CIA, NSA and whatever other agencies are involved be tasked to fix them. They're running out of time.

4. Don't expect the clues to be as obvious as they will after the fact. The best results are likely to come from a small group of eccentric and creative bright people with good access to info. The current system specializes in shooting down theories rather than developing them and checking them.