That’s short for “masters of the obvious,” which is an apt description for the authors of the giant bag of nothing the Washington Post features on page one today. The giant bag of nothing is an investigation by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin of the United States intelligence community.

‘Puter lists some of the shocking revelations below, so the reader can forgo wading through 16 slides of reporting.

1. Government is really, really big.

2. Government is really, really inefficient.

3. Government costs too much.

4. Government officials in charge of various programs have no clue what their charges are up to.

5. Government does not manage data well.

6. Government can’t aggregate sufficient data to determine whether the benefits of the services purchased are worth the costs.

What’s the word ‘Puter’s looking for? Oh, that’s right: Duh.

Each of these criticisms can be made of any and all government enterprises. ‘Puter assumes the WaPo chose the intelligence function to “expose” because it’s: (a) necessarily shadowy and opaque; and (b) viscerally distrusted by orthodox liberals (read: “all right thinking people”). In fact, each of the authors’ claims is difficult to test against the intelligence community because there’s so little public information available, as admitted in the article.

Here’s a possible solution to the issues identified by Ms. Priest and Mr. Arkin. Let’s try to solve the problems identified in a more transparent government industry first. We can work backwards to intelligence, which, admittedly, could also use some work. Let’s start with Social Security. Or maybe Medicare/Medicaid. We know exactly how much money is appropriated for each, and on what it is ostensibly spent. None of the information to which the employees have access is essential to national security, hence easier access. We should be able to do a full audit in less than the years it took Ms. Priest and Mr. Arkin to put together their magnum opus. But such an endeavor would challenge deeply held liberal beliefs, and we can’t have that.

Were ‘Puter less kind, he would characterize this article as a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But ‘Puter’s not that cruel.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.