EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN: The Lesson of ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’: Intelligence agencies are loath to correct mistakes, especially when careers are at stake.

Here’s something from InstaPundit, nearly ten years ago: “Organizations that succeed — especially in wartime — do so by ensuring that bad news gets to the top. Eisenhower made a big point of that in World War Two. The Vietnamese made a big point of it when they were fighting us. The suppression of bad news and the concealment of failure are the hallmarks of dysfunctional organizations. Look at the security establishment, and see where it fits in, based on the evidence so far.”

UPDATE: Reader Phil Manhard writes: “Sounds eerily like the Traditional Media’s relationship with the Obama administration.”

And Jason Whitworth emails: “This is the best description of public education in the U.S. that I have seen.”