What to make of the CIA

Ever since Bob Novak's breaking column on the tensions between the Bush administration and the CIA, I've been taken back by the implications of a left-leaning intelligence force.

For years now, I've known how decidedly left the State Department leans. But the entrenched mentality of the CIA is a touchy point for me to swallow. After all, the State Department is an edifice of diplomacy that will easily hold lock step with the socialists in Europe, mostly because most of its employment force wets their feet on European soil before heading back stateside for management positions. But the CIA!? What reason have they to lean left...

Perhaps the reason is all too obvious: academia. The pure scope of failure of the pre-9/11 intelligence community runs parallel to the huge influx of deskjob analysts rather than serious ground intelligence. We learn from Woodward and others that the CIA had no operatives in Iraq after a post-9/11 assessment. We'll lay the blame somewhere and sometime (at least Tenent is gone).

I've spoken before how shocked I was to speak to a good friend of mine who is an analyst for the CIA. His inclinations were also leaning left. He is decidedly worried who will take over the defense department and other agencies. His main complaint: The US is deceived if it thinks that it can implement a democracy in the middle east.

Of late, I've been reading Lee Harris's excellent article in Policy Review 2 years ago My friend referred me to another article in the Atlantic monthly (which I have yet to find?). I think the tension between these two articles goes like this:

> Al Quaeda is delusional and requires an equally delusional response.

Harris would see this quote as supporting Bush, the Atlantic monthly sees it directly affecting Bush. I need to do some more research on this. More to follow.