Two names now getting a lot of play for the Secretary of DHS are Fran Townsend,White House homeland security adviser and Joe Allbaugh, Bush right-hand-man and former Director of FEMA.

I would think a big qualification for DHS would be some major executive experience, given the organizational challenges facing the new Department; and Allbaugh probably has a stronger resume in that regard.

On the other hand, the words I hear about Townsend are competent, honest, clean and other such terms.

Allbaugh, meanwhile, checked out at FEMA right about the time the first bombs started falling over Baghdad to hang out a shingle in the Iraq contracts rain-making biz as New Bridge Strategies in order to trade on his connections to President Bush.

New Bridge, as you'll recall, was set up for Allbaugh by uber-GOP-lobbyist Haley Barbour's firm, Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Inc, which was also generous enough to let New Bridge operate from their offices.

So I guess you could say that at least a couple of those adjectives don't apply to him.