Since I'm pressed for time today, here are a few headlines from today's New York Times, presented without much comment:

FBI Covered up for Boston Mobsters, Lawsuits Assert

Lawmakers Say Misstatements Cloud FBI Chief's Credibility

Ashcroft Permits FBI to Monitor Internet and Public Activities

Editorial: An Erosion of Civil Liberties

Yes, I understand that we need a domestic intelligence agency (and also that many of the FBI restrictions that Ashcroft lifted were self-imposed, banning activities already permitted under law).

But this fish is rotten, and it has rotted from the head --- by which I mean not so much Mueller, as the culture of the career bureaucrats at headquarters who largely escaped responsibility for a string of scandals stretching back to J. Edgar Hoover.

We need a domestic intelligence agency. But does it have to be this one?