White Noise Insanity

Yeah, applying for a job at the Central Intelligence Agency should be a fun time and the application should make you laugh like hell when you're filling it out too! Honestly, I don't think the CIA should be screening their future employees to see who has a better sense of humor or who 'gets it'. I think the CIA should be concentrating on hiring individuals who are professionals, who understand the history of our own country and the history of other countries, and who know many different languages to spy on our enemies across the planet. But hey, who am I to tell the CIA to act like professionals by hiring the right people for the job and by weeding out the serious people anyways?

Oh, this is funny:

The agency's online personality test is the equivalent of a help-wanted sign, posted on the closest thing the agency has to a front door - its Web site. The frivolous quiz is designed to encourage job applications while dispelling myths about the agency, some of them born of the James Bond stereotype.

For instance, the CIA wants you to know that everyone who works there does not drive a sports car with machine guns in the tailpipes. Successful applicants will, in fact, see their family and friends again. Also, "you don't have to know karate or look good in a tuxedo to work at the CIA," the personality quiz says.

All fun aside, the hiring push began almost immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and picked up steam in November 2004 when President Bush called for a 50 percent increase in the agency's ranks of operatives and analysts.

I'm just laughing out loud now! Let's hope stand up comics all over our nation spend time chuckling and filling out this online application, because it will make me sleep better knowing we have comedians protecting us rather than professionals. Even the retirees of the CIA don't see the humor in the way the current leaders of it are handling the new recruits:

Some of the CIA's traditionalists fear the agency is tarnishing its proud, exclusive roots to meet the presidential directive. They worry that the CIA quiz and its advertisements during "MythBusters" and other cable shows with cult followings are too gimmicky.

In short, they worry that the agency is sacrificing quality to get quantity. Last year alone, the agency received 135,000 applications - a number that has more than doubled since Sept. 11, 2001.

Tom McCluskey, the CIA's chief of hiring and employee development, heard the concerns firsthand at a recent gathering of the Florida chapter of the agency's retirees association.

"Some of the old-timers grumbled, 'Where's the mystique? Where is the aura of mystery around what we do?"' McCluskey said in an interview. "The good news is that we are not seeking to hire those people."

Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller weighed in on the importance of setting humor aside when hiring for the CIA:

Meanwhile, Congress is watching the agency's recruitment efforts. The incoming chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., has said one of his priorities is investigating whether the CIA has the right people in the right jobs and ensuring the CIA has enough people who are fluent in crucial foreign languages.

Just recently within the past few months, the Senate Intelligence Committee held a meeting to talk with the individuals at the CIA about their hiring practices. As I watched this, one thing jumped out at me which was a comment made by Robert Mueller. He was asked why the Agency was not hiring young people out of college who spoke Arabic and other languages and who were highly educated individuals, which would be a benefit to our Intelligence field. Mueller responded to the question by saying the CIA likes hiring individuals from Wall Street instead because of their age, experiences, and because they just trust them more. Apparently those on Wall Street see the humor in the CIA and get first priority.

Uh huh. Wall Street & comedians are the best bet for the safety of our nation according to Mueller! Please don't send the CIA anyone with the necessary tools to combat terrorism to hire...oh no!...please just send the people who have a great personality and who will make the other agents at the water cooler laugh like hell!

If you don't feel safe, you have good reason to feel that way. Under the Bush Administration scientists and other professionals have been thrown to the curb, while the humourous and uneducated of our country (and the Bush Loyalists I may add) are put in positions that affect all of us, but they don't care. Great, huh? Think I'm making too much of this and taking it wrong? I don't care! I want people protecting me who know what the hell they're doing, rather than whether or not they get the sarcasm and irony of the CIA itself!