Siir;.... The intelligence community is like any other bureaucracy, generally putting its needs to the fore, and as inclined to cover its ass by sitting on it... I have no doubt that there are good and able people there; but if the president does not have at least one man there responsive to his needs and deferential to his power, then how can he be held responsible.... We isolate cabinet positions... They stand behind the president, and if recent history is a guide, he stands up for them....But I think, that if you look at the presidency historically, you can see almost exactly when it  became an expensive and distant office.... When the spoils of office was ended, the president no longer had to be accountable for the action of the bureaucracy.... When all owed their office to the president, and the president had to be accountable for their performance, then the government could be counted on to work for at least a majority of the people... Certainly it was a cash cow, but it was then not so often for sale to the highest bidder... Look at those who Lincoln appointed, even his political generals, and they could produce votes, and their offices could produce revenue... While it may be argued that one who buys his job will not also work at it, still; something had to get done... When the CIA, and FBI failed this country before 911, and the CIA failed before Iraq; heads should have rolled like bowling balls... We pay for failures so that is what we get... So what if the general frustration with government leads to change??? Where is the change???Will it be only a change of faces or of substance; because if America is paying those spies a fair wage, and for that wage they do not have the nads to tell the president what they know, and don't know; then what good are they??? Look at the meltdown on Wall Street... Is that only a failure of bureaucracy??? It was that... But when funds are not there to pay to monitor, then whose failure is the disaster???Why you are talking is the problem... It does not matter who is in charge if they are intelligent and responsible.... The problem of all problems in this country is that we are not governed by ourselves... WE are governed by ideology... Our ideology determined the intelligence pre 911... Our ideology determined the oversight before, and long before Wall Street melted... You want to appear the messenger of responsible government... I see  through you like a cheap nighty... Your ideology blinds your perspective just as it has blinded government for our entire lifetimes.... Procapitalism/anticommunism, pro christian/ anti islamic, pro right/ anti liberal and the only problem is that ideologies are no better than beer goggles... Until people trash their ideology they cannot act and react as every situation demands... Ideology does not make for good government... I trust Mr. Obama will not be ideological, but practical and pragmatic... In that, he needs department heads responsive to him in every detail... Then their failures can be laid at the feet of the president...Thanks...Sweeney