No Gold Stars?

The Century Foundation's report card for the Department of Homeland Security was released late last week, and even the middling grade of C+ (doubtless a source of nostalgia for the president) is probably a bit inflated. For instance, the grade for aviation security is a B-. But the author put a lot of weight on formal compliance, rather than the bottom line: The low grade for poor staff training and background checks was balanced by an A for getting more warm bodies out at the security checkpoints… even if some of them belonged to felons or the untrained. And as she acknowledged at the release press conference, it's probably still the case that anyone with a CBS reporter's level of aptitude in the art of terrorism can get what they like on a plane.