Folks, when you read all the whining about DNI taking over the CIA’s central role and coordinating all the intelligence resources remember one thing. This was not a power grab, this was the recommendation of the 9-11 commission. This is not Bush’s plan to destroy the CIA, this was the plan of the 9-11 Commission Democrats demanded get enacted. So when you read things like this, simply note how transparent the bias is, how reporters do no research whatsoever, and how reporters have no long term memory

But most of all, he had been hired as CIA chief at the very moment the job began to lose its clout. Less than a year after Goss stepped into the Langley, Va., post, Bush named Negroponte director of national intelligence (DNI) and gave him the authority to oversee and direct 16 intelligence shops—among them the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the FBI. Armed with new powers created by Congress, Negroponte was supposed to make the hidebound agencies work together and share information, something they had largely failed to do before 9/11. Goss’s departure was, above all, a signal that Negroponte was finally exercising his powers and trying to slip the stray agencies into harness.

The story in Time is a fictional fantasy of power grabs. But the 9-11 Commission demanded this be done, and so did the Democrats running up to the 2004 elections. Back then it seemed the best way to get votes. Now pillaring the very things they demanded two years ago and blaming Bush for their decisions back then seems to be the best way to win votes. Did the Dems not understand what they were saying back then when they pandered for all those national security votes?

Doesn’t hurt to have a brain dead media around to carry your water either.  Check out this garbage from Ingatius in today’s WaPo:

Goss was dumped by a president who doesn’t like to fire anyone. That was a sign of how badly off track things had gotten at the CIA. Goss and his aides were feuding with the agency’s staff and with officials of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the new bureaucratic canopy that overlays the CIA and 14 other intelligence agencies.

Emphasis mine.  What was a critical national activity to take on in 2004 is now a ‘bureaucratic canopy’!  When I read this article, I am pleased to see the progress being made in churning up the antique organizations and methods. Modernizing the intelligence community in one integrated effort (to optimize the changes to attain maximum efficiencies and productivity) is going to cause lots of changes. The more it was needed the more changes will be made. I see one common theme for the press corpse: they are losing their sources who basically provided them their high salaries. Remember that too as we see the media whine about change, when all they fear is losing their next raise because their sources were moved to a new position.

The best line is from Hayden of course!

“Let me tell you what we’ve learned,” Hayden said. “There is no way to get a self-aware, self-synchronizing intelligence system without a kick-ass center because no one plays nice with each other voluntarily.”