ARTICLE: Intelligence Chief Is Shifted to Deputy State Dept. Post, By MARK MAZZETTI, New York Times, January 4, 2007

On Negroponte's shift to State: to me this is desperate cannibalizing of talent that should not be moved. What Negroponte has begun in the IC has the potential to revolutionize everything there, and frankly, that should matter more than this administration's current myopic fixation on Iraq. Bush is neglecting the Long War by focusing too much on this one battle, giving us a presidency more trapped by circumstances than other since Nixon.

Our only hope in this shift (which I do not see correcting any significant imbalance in the correlation of bureaucratic forces on the subject of Iraq: so Condi's got Negroponte, Cheney's still Cheney), is that McConnell's past working relationship with Gates positions him well to keep the pile moving at DNI.