Steve Chapman: Government Ineptitude, CIA-Style
Faced with the conflicting claims about the CIA's use of "enhanced interrogation" methods on suspected terrorists, most people have neither the time nor the expertise to sift through all the evidence to make a definitive judgment. But here's a useful exercise, writes Steve Chapman: Imagine that in the aftermath of 9/11, the person in charge of the CIA was Kathleen Sebelius.
Why would anyone expect the spy agency to do a more honest or effective job in getting information from detainees than HHS did in handling health insurance customers? The assumption among the Bush administration's defenders is that the intelligence community is made up of star performers with peerless skills and impeccable judgment. But it's not clear the CIA workforce is appreciably different from the rest of the Washington bureaucracy, according to Chapman.
