GovernmentExecutive.com

This week's New Yorker includes an exhaustive profile (not available online) of Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence. Among the thoughts the intelligence community's overseer shared with the magazine's Lawrence Wright:

• On coordinating the efforts of the various intelligence agencies: "I grew up in this community. I served it as a consultant. I'm passionate about it. So this job gives me the opportunity to make a contribution, even to the consternation of the bureaucracies, because I am going to force them to cooperate."


• On his political affiliation: "I'm not a Republican or a Democrat. My worry is good government." And: "I always vote, and I've voted for both parties."


• On the movie The Bourne Ultimatum, in which CIA agents sit at banks of massive computer monitors and have instant access to data and security camera feeds around the world: "Yeah, we can't do that. That's all horse pucky."