Are We Witnessing a Change of Heart?

This morning, President Bush announced the appointment of Frances Frago Townsend to lead the investigation into what happened (or didn't) after Hurricane Katrina.

At first glance, naming someone known to have his ear may seem yet another bit of insiders investigating insiders and covering up any distasteful findings.

Yet Townsend, a 42-year-old married mother of two and a proponent of the Patriot Act, may actually be a bit different, according to many reports -- even if she did contribute $2,000 to the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. After all, arch-conservative and highly-strung Robert Novak considered her Bush's enemy within.

If she is, that would be a welcome change. Perhaps we will see a real investigation with real people named and real changes made as a result.

Townsend, a Republican, now Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor, used to be confidante to Attorney General Janet Reno. As a Democratic appointee under Clinton, she directed the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR) which enforces the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and acts as gatekeeper of wiretap potential al Quada wiretap decisions.

During her leadership at OIPR, she was seen as an "assiduous defender of the rules" but also as the one who "pushed very hard to allow the sharing of information, given the court's strictures and Department of Justice policy at that time." At issue here is the stringency of the FISA Act of 1978, the Act which Townsend needed to interpret in allowing -- for reasons of national security -- FBI requests for wiretaps and the searching of seized property. It was her office's job to review these requests and determine which had enough probable cause to be granted.

She resigned from her position when John Ashcroft took over the Justice Department and accepted a position as assistant commandant of intelligence at the Coast Guard.

But she had colleagues in the inner administration who valued her honesty, her intelligence, her attention to detail, and her ability to be "disarmingly frank." They stumped for her and eventually Condoleeza Rice pulled her into the National Security Council as deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism.

In this position she was a lead part in the debacle of the raised terror alert -- based on information a year and a half old -- that dealt with financial institutions

She's considered persistent and tenacious -- but her critics say her rise to power is more a result of her ability to play the political game and be a suck up."

Her directorship of OIPR was controversial as well. In a time when many were calling for the sharing of intelligence information, some believe she reinforced "the wall", between intelligence and law enforcement, ensuring that information was not easily shared among agencies and departments.

Other critics cite the federal closing of a Washington, DC, street without notice to the District police as proof that Townsend is not as open and honest as she appears. And they point to a transcript where she says of the District police, "they got the information that was relevant to their area or locality" -- implying, of course, that she knows best who needs to know what.

So what we have in this soon-to-be-important investigator is a woman who plays by the legal rules, who apparently understands politics well enough to have landed in a highly visible and important position, and who really doesn't fit into one camp or another.

She appears to be a nemesis to both conservatives and liberals. Conservatives see her as being too legal-minded and exacting when interpreting the law and liberals see her as a "one of them," keeping information from the rest of us.

In a time when many of us have lost whatever faith we have in federal policy making, it will be interesting to see what Ms. Townsend uncovers – and how much of what is uncovered we actually learn.

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Written in collaboration with Jennfier Hicks.