So pleased with themselves

Congress gave final approval to the most massive reorganization of America's intelligence system in over 50 years, which lawmakers said would reduce the risk of terror strikes like the attacks on September 11, 2001.

By a vote of 89-2, the Senate overwhelmingly backed legislation to completely reconfigure the U.S. espionage establishment, and among other reforms, impose an intelligence "czar" or director of national intelligence (DNI) atop the current bureaucracy, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

  Muslim American Society article

And, unless you just don't get it, you know that you are no more and no less safe from anything than you were on September 10, 2001.

President George W. Bush, who now must sign the measure into law, hailed its passage.

"I commend the Congress for passing historic legislation that will better protect the American people and help defend against ongoing terrorist threats," he said in a statement.

Smirking all the while.

Bush, who initially opposed creation of the commission, and, at first, balked at giving full budget authority to a new spy director, made last minute appeals to lawmakers to pass the bill, reports Reuters.

Apparently he has been sufficiently convinced by Congress' ineptitude and his new mandate that no one is ever going to call him out for his role in the attacks, and the bill is sufficiently worthless as far as his future plans are concerned.

"While this bill has many good provisions, what it fails to do is create a leader of the intelligence community who is clearly in charge and as a result is fully accountable," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, said during the Senate floor debate.

Well, there you go. We wouldn't want anyone to be accountable. That is just not patriotic any more.

But, goodie, goodie, we get a NID, ineffectual and unaccountable though he or she is. Who's it gonna be?