The Black Bridge

So in response to the supposed "intelligence failures" of 9/11, a date that will live in stupidity, Congress creates "another layer of large, unintended and unnecessary bureaucracy," only to conclude, a year later, that it’s created "another layer of large, unintended and unnecessary bureaucracy."

Of course, they did allow John Negroponte to run the thing, and maybe they thought he’d just disappear the middle managers or something, once the fucker got up and going, though I’m not sure even the Butcher of Belize is up for that sort of thing.

Arthur Silber is all over the fatuity of "intelligence failures" anyway, so I needn’t get into the foolish premises underlying the whole debate. Suffice to say that this is yet another instance in which our vast, technocratized elite prove totally incapable of responding to any asymmetrical threat, challenge, or rivalry with a measured, considered, and proportionate response. Low-tech attack that succeeds because it’s low-tech—a standard hijacking with a twist? Create a massive federal bureaucracy. Launch more spy satellites. Data mine the whole freaking internet.

I’ve long believed that the essential characteristic that separates the mind of an adult from that of an adolescent is a sense of proportion. Lord save us from the rule of the overgrown teenagers.