Wonder how far this story will go. [Parallel question: How soon will a Richard Perle call Laura Blumenfeld "closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist"?]*
The article from the front of today's WaPo is further along the lines of Mr. Chait's important work, "The 9/10 President; Bush's Abysmal Failure on Homeland Security."
And note (as I am learning with more discussions)- simply labeling these issue as firestarters and unsubstantialted Bush-dislike does not make them go away. Well. Actually it does make them go away from the public conscious, as the Rove-minded folks are so aware. But for those of us with legitimate national security concerns- and who feel at un-ease with the two linked reports above- I await debate on the merits. Read the articles, and respond with something other than "that's all just conspiracy." Unless, of course, you can show me Chait and a three decade "fair minded" government intellegence worker are really just out to blow smoke.

* The Perle incident, from Blitzer's interview, seems an appropriate object of inspection here. Perle responded to Sy Hersh's very thoughtful investigation into possible conflicts of interest by calling the investigator a terrorist. It seemed lost on Perle that these things, and even the possibility of these things, matter- not the least when the country contemplates war.
But, of more importance, we see Perle, in the same interview, giving the classic reasoning that was used over and over in response to the 'we can contain Hussein, why go to war now' argument:
"PERLE: The concept of containment is a geographic concept. As long as he's in his own country, people argue that he is contained. But the fact is, he is working away, as he has been, at weapons of mass destruction. He has significant concealed inventories, and he can break out at any moment."
What does "break out at any moment" mean? As far as I can tell, it is further suggestion along the Bush-fed notions that unmanned drones would fly over to America and drop Iraqi nuclear bombs. Hmmm. Would Perle now denounce that the threat that he relies on here was what drove the popular perception allowing for a vote-getting war?