When to reform homeland security

Clearly the President's proposal to reform how this country deals with homeland security has merit--there is a new security environment and many of the current structures our outdated and strange: the Coast Guard shouldn't be in the Department of Transportation. But there is real concern about how we approach reform. There is something to be said for ramming through reform before the vested interests and turf battles minimize the efforts to bureaucratic bedlam, but haste can also make waste (excuse the cliché). The last thing we need now are officials who are supposed to be protecting us obsessing on internal politics. The rush is mostly political: Bush said the reorg would happen by year end and Daschle and co challenged him to finish it before Sept. 11, 2002. Yet another example about how our politicians do us a great disservice by focusing on elections and not on governing. The WSJ got it right in this editorial and, amazingly, Rep.s Henry Waxman and David Obey, who can be wrong about so much, provide an excellent overview of the issues with this reorg in this letter to Tom Ridge.