New HS capo

Benjamin Wallace Wells has the lowdown on why Bernard Kerik is a pretty weak choice for Homeland Security secretary. The DHS bureaucracy is still in its infancy, and some of the largest functions (immigration especially) are in considerable disarray. We need someone that has an unholy amount of bureaucratic foresight, plus the ability to keep morale high for the tens of thousands department employees, for whom any initial reorganization buzz has most definitely worn off.

As Wells points out, there's no evidence that Kerik is the kind of virtuoso manager required, or even a successful one, for that matter. What he does have, of course, is the ability to keep 9/11 fresh in everyone's mind. Even though they won the election , they still have to act like its three years ago, when perception of strength and emotional tie-ins seemed appropriate to "keep the country moving forward". It's like a bad sequel, where only a few of the original cast came back, and secondary characters you didn't really care about in the first one are now in leading roles. The whole thing just reeks of lameness.