If we lived in a primitive age, the ground at Langley would be laid waste and salted, and there would be heads on spikes. As it is, the answer to the CIA insubordination is not just to move a few boxes on the office flow chart.

David Brooks is clearly taking the President's side, and while I disagree with him on some of the larger issues here, I do share his complaints about this strategy.

What David doesn't say is that this solution is applied everywhere, and not just to deal with "insubordination," but with anything and everything. It's become a general-purpose tool.

In modern business and government, there are only two essential tools to achieving problem solving success:

1. If people aren't getting along, try rearranging the organizational chart.
2. If people aren't doing good work, try a new process.

These are the NOR and the NAND of American corporate circuitry.

The answer is to define carefully what the president expects from the intelligence community: information.

To paraphrase what Jules once said to Vincent, "if your answers disagree with mine, then I will cease asking for your opinion."

The CIA Versus Bush