The job nobody wants

President Barack Obama last week fired his intelligence chief, Dennis Blair, without an immediate successor teed up. People familiar with the matter said the White House had expected Mr. Blair would stick around until a replacement was found. Mr Blair declined.

Expected? Is this any way to run a government? It smells of incompetence. The job of DNI was not properly structured, nor its job description defined, leaving the DNI in governmental bureaucratic limbo. But to fire a symbolically important figure and not have a replacement ready is to hand the opposition a bludgeon, and to look incompetent.

Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta turned down a White House offer to become the next director of national intelligence. Former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, co-chairman of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, was another, they said. A person familiar with Mr. Panetta's thinking said he "finds the job of CIA director rewarding and challenging, and that's where he plans to stay." Mr. Hagel was traveling Wednesday and couldn't be reached for comment, an aide said.

 In the age of cellphones Mr. hagel couldn't be found? Perhaps he didn't want to be found.

"Anybody in their right mind would turn the job down," Missouri Sen. Kit Bond, the top Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, said Wednesday after speaking to National Security Adviser James Jones about the post. Mr. Bond said the post of director of national intelligence lacks authority and presidential support.


Oops, even a Republican thinks so.

Congress established the job in 2004 as a result of the findings of the 9/11 Commission, which identified shortcomings in the coordination of the country's disparate spy agencies. While the intelligence director enjoys titular authority over all intelligence agencies, in practice past directors have had limited control over budget and personnel and found it difficult to impose their will on agencies such as the CIA. Mr. Blair, a retired admiral, was the third director in five years. Intelligence officials said Wednesday that the director's job description was too vague to attract qualified candidates.