Captain's Quarters has been, as Michelle Malkin puts it, 'on fire' with AD coverage, and also information on Gorelick and the 'wall' she put into place between law enforcement and intelligence. One of the things that strikes me about the Able Danger mess is the same that strikes me on the stuff coming out on the Oklahoma City Bombing: the coverup.
In both cases you've got people in government who had information about a serious threat, provided by intelligence work(both LE and military); either ignored it or mishandled it for various reasons; horrible events happened and people died; and the main concern of those in charge seems to be "Don't let anybody know we knew this!". Screw finding out exactly what went wrong, to hell with punishing people who didn't do their damn jobs, and making sure it doesn't happen again? Oh, really, how provincial! WE have to protect our agency/reputation/boss! That's FAR more important!
And that seems to be exactly what's happening on a number of fronts. Remember the FBI agent who wanted to get a warrant to search the suspect's laptop, and his boss refused to even request the warrant for fear of being seen as 'insensitive' or 'bigoted' or whatever? His career concerns mattered more than what might happen, and what did happen to him? Was he fired, disciplined, SOMETHING? Hell, no. The FBI agent who refused to wear a wire when talking to a suspect because 'a Muslim doesn't record another Muslim'? Fired, disciplined? Hell no, that would be seen as bigoted and/or insensitive, so he was PROMOTED and transferred somewhere else. In the FBI you have a culture that mimics other large bureaucracies like the Justice Department and State: the reputation of the organization is more important than anything else, and if we have to stonewall and coverup and, in all too many cases, flat-out lie to protect it, so be it.
And you KNOW there are a lot of people in all those agencies who are dying inside because of it. The FBI, as one example, has a lot of very good, very capable people. They joined to fight crime and catch bad guys and protect this country. A lot of them have attitude problems, but that doesn't change the fact that they are very, very good at what they do. And they get to sit there watching higher-ups turn down information and lose cases and endanger the very things these people value simply to protect/enhance the reputations of themselves and the Bureau. It has to be killing them inside to watch this, and yet they very rarely speak of it in public. I think there are three main reasons: hope, training and fear. Hope, in that they keep hoping things will get better and the job will get done right. Training because by the time you get through the FBI Academy, you've been taught that the Director sits at God's right hand and gives advice, and you're somewhat below that and don't make trouble for your 'betters'. And fear because they know what kind of trouble the Bureau can cause for someone who irritates the brass hats. Put it all together, it's a massive block to get through, and very few do. And in many cases they do accomplish good things, so they keep working at what they can, and push the pain of what's coming out into a corner. So I think.
All this isn't helped by Congress being so unwilling in so many cases to actually do something about wrongdoers. Because someone supports a political view or is in a favored agency or is just one of the 'good' or 'protected' people, they don't get whacked on the way they should when the do wrong. Remember the Keating Five? And McCain is still in office. Hell, Barney Frank had a boyfriend running a brothel out of Frank's house, and he basically got his hand slapped. Lightly. You've got a lot of people in office who'll protect, for instance, people in the State Department against almost anything because they have the 'right' point of view, and what's a little corruption or idiocy or treason compared to that?
Hmm? Oh, yes, I DO have an answer. Start holding these people accountable. Demote, fire, prosecute and so forth when they do wrong, no matter who they know and no matter what it does to the reputation of whatever agency/party. Unfortunately, not too likely to happen. I hope, but I also despair about this.
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