I confess I don’t understand the McConnell/Negroponte/Khalilzad rearrangement. Not that I have anything against any of them (although I always thought Negroponte was not well-suited for DNI). Quite the contrary, in fact; they have all performed well in a variety of difficult jobs, sometimes extremely well. I just don’t get it. The Beltway rumor is that Condi is leaving soon, so Negroponte agreed to move over, pending his elevation to SecState. But why the rush, if that is true? Moving now is a clear demotion, the message it sends is that he is no longer judged able to run the Intelligence Community. And if that is so, why would W want him to be SecState? And if it is not so, why not leave him as DNI until Condi leaves and then move him over to State? This is way beyond my pay grade; can anyone explain it to me? And while you’re at it, please explain to me why we are putting an admiral in charge of the ground war in Iraq.