Ron Kessler of Newsmax, via an email makes the point:

“News accounts of problems associated with the FBI are wildly overblown. At the center of the controversy are the issues surrounding the FBI‚Äôs national security letters.

In an audit, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine found minor deficiencies associated with 22 of 293 national security letters he examined from 2003 to 2005.

National security letters are issued in international terrorism and espionage investigations. They are similar to grand jury subpoenas, which are normally issued at the direction of a prosecutor and allow the FBI, in criminal investigations, to obtain financial records and records of calls, e-mails, and Internet searches.

In some cases, the letters were issued after the authorized investigation period, or an agent had accidentally transposed the digits in a telephone number of a person under investigation. “

Of course this is Washington and the MSM is decidedly anti-Bush, anti-success in Iraq and anti-FBI. But the fact is that the IG report - written by a Clintonite no less - found absolutely no sign of intentional wrong doing or any intention of commiting a crime. But because the Democrats control congress this story got a lot more airplay than it would have otherwise.

Yet the fact is that the FBI which has done a steller job in protecting this country since 9/11 gets no credit for a job well done, instead people looked for the “grass between the cracks” on the sidewalk.

“The media routinely referred to the findings as abuses. An abuse was when former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wiretapped individuals to obtain political secrets or blackmailed members of Congress to obtain a higher budget. Transposing digits in telephone numbers ‚Äî while inexcusable ‚Äî amounts to sloppiness.

Ironically, a table accompanying The Washington Post’s Page One story about Fine’s report itself contained a typo, listing the number of cases examined by Fine as 273 instead of 293.

Calling the problems “another fiasco at the FBI,” an editorial in The Wall Street Journal extrapolated from the audit report to the conclusion that the bureau may “simply be incapable of effective counterterrorism.” The editorial said the country needs to debate whether the FBI’s counterterrorism functions should be handed over to an agency similar to Great Britain’s MI5.

We have not been attacked in more than five years; this is due to the effective work of the FBI and the CIA. Every few months, the FBI announces new arrests of terrorists plotting to kill Americans. This is not luck. It is because under Mueller, the FBI has transformed itself into a counterterrorism agency that gathers and uses intelligence to roll up plots before they occur.

As outlined in an Aug. 21, 2006 NewsMax article, ‚ÄúAn American MI5 is the Wrong Approach,‚Äù creating such an agency would be a disastrous mistake, putting the country at grave risk. It is no coincidence that the only people who advocate an MI5 approach have never themselves had anything to do with investigating terrorism.”

The fact it’s always those who benefit from the sidelines who play the armchair quarterback on monday morning.

UPDATE: Andy McCarthy is with me:

“So let’s get a grip. The errors are worthy of being criticized. But the suggestion that Director Mueller or AG Gonzales should be made to walk the plank over this controversy is absurd.”