I have to admit, my first reaction to the Commission's recommendation for an intelligence chief was positive. It took Charles Hill's excellent article, reprinted in Powerline, to persuade me otherwise. In fact, there already exists such a chief - the DCI.

In all likelihood, the administration is waiting to appoint a new one because that job is about to get much tougher. Not only will he have to change the way the CIA does business, he's going to have to tackle and harness bureaucracies that are institutionally hostile to him. The administration has a chance to seize the initiative here, and make a fresh start of things.

Ken Salazar immediately accepted the commission's recommendation (Adobe PDF). Which suggests another line of attack: Salazar want more bureaucracy, when what we need is leadership. Coors and Schaffer both pointed out in the NFIB debate that Salazar's position on the Death Tax was basically a bureaucratic one: pick a number below which we'll let people inherit the family business. What we need is a principled one: the money's already been taxed, why break up the business or force its sale to someone even bigger?

This may well be a theme that the Republicans can pick up after August 10.