Phil Carter on the "war czar"

Bush has appointed a "war czar" to deal with his bureaucracy. Phil Carter has written the definitive summary of the situation. It's worth reading the whole piece.

INTEL DUMP - Doug Lute: dream the impossible dream

Okay, I'm still scratching my head over this one. None of my thoughts are new on this, but I thought I'd air them anyway:

1) Isn't this guy supposed to be the "war czar"? If he can't make the interagency process work by knocking a few heads and firing a few cabinet officers, who can?

2) What's going to happen the first time that Lt. Gen. Lute doesn't get his way? Imagine a hypothetical where Gen. David Petraeus asks for more Justice Department personnel to promote the rule of law , and Al Gonzales tells him to go swimming in the Tigris....

3) How are the other agencies going to react to having yet another general in charge of policy? Maybe about as well as State reacted to having Jay Garner appointed as the head of ORHA during the early stages of the war?...

4) How broken is the U.S. national security apparatus that we need a "czar" to run it? Is the NSC that f---ed up that it needs a 3-star with some juice in the Pentagon to make things work? (This is a rhetorical question; the only possible answer is yes.)...

and the first comment is well chosen ...

Someone needs to tell President Bush that if you're sitting in the Cabinet Room and you don't see a President, then it's you.

Why did Lute take the job? Does Rove have incriminating photos of him with a North Korean agent? (that's a joke) Weird. Very weird.