Perhaps this shrinking of the CIA is necessary if the agency has become as politicized and ungovernable as it sometimes seems from the outside. In that case, Mr. Bush would be better off shutting Langley altogether and rebuilding an intelligence service from the ground up under the DNI. This being Washington, where inertia rules, that isn't likely to happen. So we are probably left with the hope that Mr. Bush will choose a new director who can work with Mr. Negroponte to make the agency more effective.

Given the way Mr. Goss was roughed up, despite having worked at the CIA himself as a younger man, Mr. Bush shouldn't acquiesce and pick a Langley insider. We'd recommend Rudy Giuliani or Paul Wolfowitz, assuming either would take the job. Or better yet, make one of those two the DNI, and move Mr. Negroponte over to CIA. That would get everyone's attention, especially al Qaeda's.