Reuel Marc Gerecht (via the NRO News Brief) in the NYT:

The intelligence community comprises many bureaucracies, which even when small and bright — the State Department’s intelligence and research bureau, for example — usually reflect the established views of the larger institutions that house them. The dreaded disease — “group think” — is an unavoidable, and usually undetectable, affliction for intelligence analysts who want to prosper professionally.
No American diplomat in Foggy Bottom’s Near East bureau can expect to rise through the ranks if he underscores the deleterious effect of the “peace process” on the Palestinian people. No analyst in — or foreign-service officer in the field — could have expected much applause if he’d unceasingly stressed the imminent democratic wave that was about to crest over the Arab world. Functionally, there is no difference in professional curiosity between a diplomat and an analyst at State: both must conform or risk oblivion.