[ OUR OPINION ]

---

Goss needs grilling
about CIA oversight

THE ISSUE A Senate committee has scheduled confirmation hearings on President Bush's nomination of Rep. Porter J. Goss as central intelligence director.

FEARFUL about being portrayed as partisan obstructionists, Democrats in the Senate are expected to confirm President Bush's nomination of Rep. Porter J. Goss as director of central intelligence. That should not keep them from grilling Goss about his chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee, which had the responsibility of providing oversight for an agency that failed miserably in the days before and after Sept. 11, 2001.

The Florida Republican's credentials on paper are strong. He was a CIA agent for many years and he was largely bipartisan as chairman of the House committee. The 9/11 commission asserted in its report, "Congressional oversight for intelligence -- and counterterrorism -- is now dysfunctional." However, in calling for reform of congressional oversight, the commission blamed systemic problems, not bad leadership.

The Goss nomination was made two months after George J. Tenet's resignation from the post and before Congress has decided what to do about the 9/11 commission's recommendation to create a new position of national intelligence director to oversee all U.S. intelligence agencies. Bush favors an intelligence czar but without the budget and personnel powers suggested by the commission.

The position to which Bush has appointed Goss has such powers within the CIA, but those would be taken away if Congress follows the commission's recommendation, resulting essentially in Goss' demotion soon after his employment. If that were the case, it would not be surprising if Bush then would nominate Goss to the newly created job.

Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry has called for "fair, bipartisan and expeditious confirmation hearings," which are scheduled the first week in September before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. No Democratic senator has declared an intention to oppose Goss' nomination, although many are grumbling about Bush having appointed a politician. If Kerry is elected president, he probably will replace Goss with someone who has not criticized him sharply, as Goss did recently.

If Democrats do their job, the upcoming confirmation hearings may be portrayed as highly political. Republicans will not grill Goss harshly about his committee's oversight failures since their committee shared in that responsibility. Democrats should not shy away from such questioning, even though the Bush re-election campaign will depict it as a partisan attack.

---

BACK TO TOP
|

Logo search sputters
to a merciful close

THE ISSUE A University of Hawaii committee has rejected all of the proposed designs.

AFTER more than 17 months, numerous discussions, $142,000 in outlays and eight graphic duds, the University of Hawaii has wisely chosen to cease its search for a new logo. The star-crossed attempt to design and choose an emblem that would identify the 10 campuses individually and the UH system collectively came to an end when the six latest proposals failed to score anywhere close to the 85 percent of points deemed necessary to win favor.

The selection committee did its job when it rejected the insipid designs as undeserving. David McClain, the acting president, showed he is keen enough to know when to let go of an ill-advised project and move on to more important matters.

The logo hunt was a legacy of former president Evan Dobelle, who commissioned the first two designs that sparked the controversy last year. Like his tenure, the logo pursuit is pau and none too soon.