Resignations Galore!

Well King George's royal entourage suddenly has many vacancies. I was still rejoicing over the resignation of Attorney Generalisimo Ashcroft-who decided that being big brother was just too exhausting. Rumors were confirmed that we now have further reason to celebrate as the Secretary of Education Rod Page (of No Child Left Behind infamy) has resigned; so too, the secretaries of energy and agriculture.

Far and away the biggest cabinet member to resign was Colin Powell, King George's reluctant, yet dutiful, point-man on the WMD propaganda campaign at the United Nations. Much discussion has revolved over his differences with others inside King George's inner chamber of power. I guess my question is if Powell was really at odds with the administration's misguided decisions, why didn't he resign? Oops, almost forgot, this adminstration didn't make any mistakes...It will be interesting to see if there is a kiss-and-tell book in the works.

Elsewhere, the CIA leadership is also in a tailspin. It seems as though it's getting more than a facelift, judging by the number of heads rolling out of Langley. Hard to know what to make of it. On one hand we wonder, did Tenet et al fail America? Too much complacency in the old boys network? Does the CIA really need to make radical changes to its intelligence gathering? I'm sure that Porter Goss is going to screw up whatever coherence is left in the upper echelons (and in the process destroy morale) to put his mark on the agency.

On the other hand, having a little experience working with blind administrators who only see what they want to see, did King George only half-listen to Tenet's briefings? In fact, did King George dictate to Tenet what was supposed to use as his security mantra?

The probable answers to all of these is affirmative, but it will have to wait until at least Christmas break for me to read up on it. I look forward to reading Imperial Hubris by "Anonymous" who recently identified himself as John E. McLaughlin, the CIA's freshly resigned deputy director.