"Department's Mission Was Undermined From Start"

There're lots of good reasons not to bother reading the Washington Post, but they can produce some good reporting. This story on the Department of Homeland Security is one such. I'm pretty sure, however, that neither reporters nor editors really understood what they'd got. The money quote: "The White House did not support us," said one of Ridge's top advisers. "That occurred repeatedly. It was [as] if the White House created us and then set out to marginalize us."

Instead of treating the story as yet another example of bureaucratic failure, fodder for the next generation's Wildavsky, people should be asking themselves whether, to what extent and why might the Bush gang have set out to fail with this particular entity.