Jay, I'm probably going to end up on the opposite side of Savage here, too. My read on John Negroponte is that he is one of those men who has the ability to get things done. There are a lot of smart, talented people in the world, but the number of them who can really act and achieve goals without excuses is radically lower.
I'm guessing that President Bush got burned on Bernard Kerik and then thought, "The celebrity strategy for this post hasn't worked, I'm going to name a superbly competent person who doesn't care much about image or headlines. Thus, we get Negroponte.
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Well, I can't set myself up too strongly against the notion that a man without "expert" qualifications can still be a very capable doer in many disciplines, since that would be a case of voting my own existence into near-nullity. I don't look like much of anything on paper myself.
Still, we are talking here not merely about being a good organizer, we are talking about being more than just an analyst of intelligence but an uber-analyst, a filter for what the President is shown. A career diplomat for that?
I am hopeful that you turn out to be right.
I think diplomats are very frequently called upon to support the intelligence mission where they are posted. That may be purely the stuff of spy thrillers, but I'd guess it makes a lot of sense for covert operations to work through someone with a little home base and trusted network right on the ground.
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