Dept. of Political Security
After weeks of scalding revelations about a cascade of leads and warnings prefiguring the 9/11 attacks that were ignored by the U.S. government, the president created the Department of Political Security.

Or, as the White House calls it for public consumption, the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. Bush's surprise move was a complete 180, designed to knock F.B.I. Cassandra Coleen Rowley off front pages. He had resisted the idea of a cabinet department focusing on domestic defense for nine months.

But clearly, Iago Rove saw his master's invincibility cracking and did a little whispering in W.'s ear. Why not use national security policy for scandal management?

So the minimalist Texan who had sneered about the larded federal bureaucracy all through his presidential campaign stepped before the cameras to slather on a little more lard — and nervous Republicans all over town found themselves suddenly praying that bigger government could save those in need (of re-election), after all.

By introducing yet another color-coded flow chart, the president tried to recapture his fading aura of wartime omnipotence. The White House even gave lawmakers "sample op-ed" pieces they could rewrite and submit to their local papers, beginning: "President Bush's most important job is to protect and defend the American people."

Even that champion of bloated government, Teddy Kennedy, seemed dubious: "The question is whether shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic is the way to go."

And others wondered whether it would be too unwieldy to have a department with 22 agencies devoted to eradicating both Al Qaeda and boll weevils. (The proposed Homeland behemoth does not include the F.B.I. or C.I.A., but it would envelop the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/09/opinion/09DOWD.html