When bureaucratic bloat leads to existential peril

When the W administration created the Department of Homeland Security in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2011 jihadist attacks, I had my doubts.  It looked like a lot of overlap and redundancy to me. Why was the focus not on upgrading the existing intelligence agencies, the FBI and the Department of Defense where needed?

And the calibre of Secretaries of said department keeps going down.  Consider the slide from Tom Ridge to Jeh Johnson.

And now we find that it's being hollowed out because people in top positions are bailing all over the place:

An exodus of top-level officials from the Department of Homeland Security is undercutting the agency’s ability to stay ahead of a range of emerging threats, including potential terrorist strikes and cyberattacks, according to interviews with current and former officials.

Over the past four years, employees have left DHS at a rate nearly twice as fast as in the federal government overall, and the trend is accelerating, according to a review of a federal database.

The departures are a result of what employees widely describe as a dysfunctional work environment, abysmal morale, and the lure of private security companies paying top dollar that have proliferated in Washington since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The department’s terrorism intelligence arm, for example, has cycled through six directors during the Obama administration, decimating morale and contributing to months-long delays in releasing intelligence reports, according to interviews and government reports.

A parade of high-level departures, on top of other factors, has meanwhile helped slow the rollout of key cybersecurity initiatives, including a program aimed at blocking malicious software before it can infiltrate civilian government computers, former officials say.

Airport security, border security, cybersecurity - all suffering because they're being handled by yet another government behemoth in which people who actually know what they're doing feel stymied.

Time for some bold moves from the very top of the leviathan, but you know why that won't happen any time soon.