Mike Chertoff, currently a U.S. Court of Appeals judge on the Third Circuit, and formerly the Chief of the Criminal Division at DOJ, the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey and a top organized crime prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, is an absolutely superb choice for this post. He is smart, he has a creative linear mind, and he is up to the management challenge — which is the biggest challenge facing this sprawling agency. Best of all, in contrast to former NYC police commissioner Bernie Kerik and some of the other state law enforcement people whose names have been floated, he knows the federal system inside and out — including the sharp elbows of its competing agencies. Once he takes the reins, you are never again like to read another story about how other agencies like the FBI are running bureaucratic rings around, and seizing turf from, DHS.