CAUGHT ON TAPE.

Our distress need not be limited to the concern that the destruction of the tapes was likely a crime. Far more difficult to remedy is the likelihood that this destruction is a manifestation culture -- a White House culture that prizes the raw assertion of power over real attention to effectiveness; a political culture that allows the occasional briefing of overlapping, overburdened, and understaffed legislative committees to substitute for meaningful congressional oversight; a judiciary that is too often afraid to inquire after any claim of official secrecy, and that imagines that the art of intelligence collection requires the expertise of rocket science. And perhaps most of all, an intelligence community marked by a culture of fiefdoms and insularity that, as the 9-11 Commission pointed out years ago, has come to burden more than benefit terrorism threat assessment and analysis.