Senator Roberts proves small-government conservatism is dead

[jmowreader]

Today's Charlotte Observer (http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/9470667.htm; registration required) carries news that Senator Pat Roberts has a wonderful new plan to reform the intelligence service.

He's going to reform it by making it worse than it is now. Yes, that is possible.

First, he will create a national terrorism center. Every agency we have now is working terror. I don't think they're supposed to stop.

Next, he splits the CIA into its three directorates: collection, covert actions, and technical support. Each of those directorates becomes a new agency.

Then he starts sorting the other intelligence agencies into various categories, and some make no sense: he wants to put the National Reconnaissance Office, who works with reconnaissance satellites, into the technical support branch because they develop their own satellites. Uhh...last I checked you can't exactly go to Best Buy and get a reconnaissance satellite; they're all made to order. NRO is a collector, which is gonna make handling their product out of the technical support office LOTS of fun.

There are lots of dual-heading opportunities in his proposal, like putting the national intelligence director in operational control of the FBI's counterterrorism staff but leaving the FBI director in administrative control of them. That fails every time it's tried.

Essentially, we're going to fix the problems the intelligence community has, which stem largely from the fact that we have 15 agencies who don't talk to each other, by changing it to 19 agencies that don't talk to each other.

Am I the only one who thinks this won't work?

[mistertrickster]

1. The answer to too much bureaucracy? Why, more bureaucracy,

of course . . .

Roberts is a senator from my state. His ability to countance Republican incompetence apparently knows no bounds.