This isn’t the week to do it, given the Wall Street meltdown. But I think there’s a real substantive reform that McCain could offer that its completely in his wheelhouse, that is necessary, and that would prove he’s a break from Bush.

McCain should vow to tear down the CIA and rebuild it from scratch.

The place is a mess but Bush refused to really reform it or purge those who screwed up both our generation’s Pearl Harbor on 9/11 but also the WMD fiasco. McCain could make the correct argument that in an age where preemption is going to have to play an important role in our foreign policy, it is vital that we have reliable intelligence. McCain can talk about these issues in his sleep. Obama can’t. McCain has the Nixon-to-China credibility on national security that would allow him to take on the CIA swamp without getting torn apart by all the usual snipers on the left and the right as well as from within the intelligence community generally. And, last, any such effort would be a clear break from Bush, but in a way that Obama couldn’t exploit and the right would not condemn.