I've written previously about the rise of the mandarin class in the US federal government. David Brooks picks up the theme and focuses on the CIA's disgraceful activity during the recent campaign season to undermine their boss. Like the mainstream media (MSM) the CIA was willing to bet their credibility on a Kerry win. Both have lost heavily but the CIA will likely pay for it quicker as Porter Goss cleans house.
Unfortunately, David Brooks doesn't see this as a systemic problem but is taking a stovepipe point of view, examining just the CIA in this column. No doubt the State Department will be taken apart in another column. While this sort of vertical thinking is good for feeding the columnist's deadline beast, it reinforces a regrettable trend not to think more broadly of the problem of our present civil service system and the inevitable temptations to band together into a mandarin class to defend the system from the "know nothing" fools who inhabit the political sphere in 2, 4, or 6 year terms.