This agency ain't big enough . . .

Bush is said to be cleansing the CIA of people who have been trying to sabotage his policies. Better late than never. If there's one agency the president must be able to trust it's the CIA. Without trustworthy information, he can't make policy. The Pentagon can resist but it has a different culture--one in which you take orders or you don't get promoted. It can't be driven by political vendettas, it must not be used as a PR tool, but it must serve the president by supplying correct and current information and analysis. If CIA people start leaking to the media, they lose the president's confidence and they become ineffective. I'm sure a lot of the current crew came in during the Clinton era, and have no love for Bush. If they can't be professional, they should leave. It's like war. The officers who are in place when the fight begins may be good in a peacetime army, but if they can't fight the enemy, they get by-passed, or should, in favor of people like Grant, Sherman and Patton.

I've assumed that Bush kept Tenet because he didn't want to have to go through the agony of finding a replacement and getting him through the confirmation process. But now that the campaign's over, and Congress has created a new intelligence czar, it sounds like a good time to tidy things up, including getting rid of many CIA leakers who tried to get Bush unelected.