George Tenant - Au Revoir

George Tenant, the Grady Little of U.S. intelligence (this is about to become an all-Grady, all the time blog) has resigned/been given the boot.

I don't know George Tenant from a hole in the wall. For all I know he could be a nice guy who gives to the Salvation Army and never, ever cheats on his taxes. He may even be a lover of animals and work part time for his local United Way.

But the U.S. intelligence community under his watch has had a string of stunning victories more painful to bear than the last 35 years of Red Sox futility. Someone has to be held accountable for 9/11 (new story yesterday has the FBI being told about the WTC/plane plot a year before it happened), and even though Tenant was just one part of the vast apparatus -- and the story linked to just now indicts the FBI, not the CIA -- I believe the failure on so many levels to pick up what was becoming a fairly fleshed out story of a plot in the making has to be laid on somebody's doorstep.

Add to 9/11 the failure of American intelligence (and over reliance on assets that had their own axe to grind - something we conveniently overlooked because they happened to agree with what the Administration's preferred belief set was) in Iraq, and I think Mr. Tenant's retirement to greener pastures is somewhat overdue. So does the Blogfather.

Of course, the American voters may have another idea of whom to blame come November.