All questions about Kelly's policies and track record in NYC aside, what's interesting about this move on Obama's part is the utter vapidness of it. There's no reason to presume that the skills of leading a large (even one of the world's largest) police forces is in any way transferable to the task of running a sprawling federal agency like the DHS (if in fact it can be "run.") It's a completely alien environment, in fact.

But Kelly is being pumped for this job solely on the basis of stature -- and nothing else. If anything it's just another sign of how useless and zombie-like the DHS has become in the short time since it was created. Which pretty much everyone -- including, it would seem, Obama himself -- already knows on some level, though very few are willing to state openly.

Brings to mind that Leonard Cohen song:

  Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
  Everybody knows that the captain lied...