Oops. So in a post below I shrugged and said the death of the intelligence bill was no big deal, mainly because even the Senate version wouldn't have given the National Intelligence Director that much authority over the Pentagon's reconnaissance agencies. I take that back: I was thinking of a much, much older Senate proposal. Reading through the actual Senate bill that just got nixed, S. 2845, would give the NID far more powers than even the 9/11 Commission had envisioned—including the ability to reprogram funds and transfer personnel. Per my concerns below, this bit of gimickry would have been a big, big boon to our dismal WMD-tracking capabilities, and the bill's failure is a Very Bad Thing Indeed.