Is a Completely Centralized Intel System Obviously Better?

I have no sufficiently well informed opinions on the best way to change the intelligence system to announce. But I wonder how if that’s also true of most of the people who have been posturing about the intel “reform” bill just passed by the Senate. The way that “families of 9/11 victims” have been paraded around Washington, you would think that critics of the bills would prefer that we have another 9/11, which seems unlikely. Curiously, some of the people now harumphing about the alleged holdup in passing such an obviously needed reform (i.e., further centralization of intelligence, with just one person responsible for getting it to the president) were recently complaining that this president doesn’t like to hear contrary opinions. Well, given that complaint, putting the whole intel responsibility on one person seems likely to make matters worse, not better. The whole affair seems to be another case of purely symbolic policy: we have to do something, and damn you if you ask questions like “Well, will it make things better, or worse?”!