Stay the Course, George!

All three network news broadcasts ran panicky pieces Friday about how the Congress went on vacation without immediately implementing the suggestions of the 9/11 Commission. The wittiest was ABC's, which showed about 30 seconds of footage of an empty hallway on Capitol Hill. At times like these, with the media calling on the government to Do Something, it's more likely than ever that we'll see the creation of whole new bureaucracies and job titles.

I'll take the members of Congress at their word that they'll be facing "tough questions" from their constituents when they go "back home," but in cases like this one it's the President who really gets the no more business as usual tongue lashings. So high praise to President Bush for not endorsing the 9/11 Commission's most popular suggestion: the creation of a new cabinet-level Inteligence Tsar or Tsarina. Since I'd doubt the crowd around here needs detailed explanations of why creating a new layer of management is never the solution to a problem in government (or for that matter, R&D, military affairs, professional sports, creative arts, live organ donation, or any other field of human endeavor I can think of), I'll just give props to the Prez for holding firm. (Said props, of course, put me under no obligation; I'm sure Bush will knuckle under once the heat comes on and Kerry turns it into a campaign issue.)