Ex-spook Peter Brookes takes a close look at Gen. Michael Hayden:

On the plus side, he's a successful military intelligence officer who's reached his profession's top ranks. With four stars across his shoulders, he's the most senior military intelligence officer in the U.S. armed forces today.

Before becoming PDDNI last spring, he capably led the super-secret, high-tech National Security Agency (NSA). He managed both civilians and military at one of the U.S.'s largest spy agencies, showing the ability to handle big intelligence enterprises like the CIA....

As Negroponte's No. 2, Hayden sees the intelligence community's function - and its reform - in the same way as his boss. The general knows better than anyone else what the DNI wants out of the CIA.

Equally important is Hayden's experience (credibility) as a senior staff officer at theater commands in Europe and Asia -no trivial matter while we're at war across the globe. He knows what kind of intelligence support the likes of Gens. John Abizaid and George Casey need in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Challenges? NSA wiretapping, that same military pedigree, (a relative lack of) human intelligence experience.

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 08:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Heritage Fellow Ed Haislmaier, who lent many ideas to the Romney Administration in the creation of its health reform proposal, knocks down many criticisms of it from well-meaning but less-than-fully-informed conservatives who have come out against the plan.

Two provisions have particularly raised conservatives' hackles: the "individual mandate" and a new fee that businesses who do not purchase insurance for their workers would have to pay to the stated uncompensated care fund.

Haislmaier's main argument is that, in the context of the overall plan, these are minor issues and are far outweighed by the plan's emphasis on market mechanisms and individual responsibility. In health care reform, the Massachusetts plan is a very new and radical thing. It is nothing like Hillarycare redux.

Beyond that, on a practical level, neither provision is likely to have much effect. The "individual mandate," while philosophically troubling, will end up punishing few if any Massachusetts citizens because of new options that will be available in the state's insurance market. The employer fee, first, isn't likely to cost nearly so much as the maximum in the bill due to insurance market reforms and, second, can be easily avoided by any firm that signed up to take advantage of the state's new insurance clearinghouse.

Finally, the most important part of the plan for conservatives is the one that has received the least coverage, and that's the Connector--the state-chartered insurance marketplace. Haislmaier, who is too modest to write on his role in developing the Connector concept, explains in great detail what it is, how it works, and why it should be love at first sight for those who'd care to see more market-driven behavior in U.S. health care.

Look for much more here on the Mass plan in the days ahead.

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 07:15 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)