BILL PULTE, a 38-year-old Floridian(佛罗里达人), has run America's Federal Housing Finance Agency for little over a year, mostly in blessed obscurity(不受关注，默默无闻). Now he is America's top spy. This might sound like the plot of a screwball comedy(怪诞喜剧). Unfortunately it is not.
38岁的佛罗里达人比尔·普尔特管理美国联邦住房金融局刚刚一年多，大部分时间处于无人问津的幸福状态。现在他成了美国最高情报官员。这听起来可能像是一部怪诞喜剧的情节。不幸的是，这不是。
On June 2nd Donald Trump appointed Mr Pulte, whose previous experience includes stint(一段时间的工作，任职期)s in home construction and private equity, to serve as acting director(代理总监) of national intelligence (DNI). Mr Pulte will succeed Tulsi Gabbard, a former congresswoman who resigned on May 22nd, citing her husband's ill-health. Ms Gabbard, a long-standing anti-war advocate, had been sidelined(被边缘化，被排挤) from most important foreign-policy debates, including the decisions to attack Venezuela and Iran.
6月2日，唐纳德·特朗普任命普尔特先生担任代理国家情报总监（DNI）。普尔特先生先前的工作经历包括在住宅建筑和私募股权领域任职。他将接替前国会女议员图尔西·加巴德，后者于5月22日以丈夫健康不佳为由辞职。加巴德女士长期反战，但在大多数重要外交政策辩论中都被边缘化，包括攻击委内瑞拉和伊朗的决定。
Mr Pulte does not carry the same ideological baggage(意识形态包袱) as Ms Gabbard, whose views on Syria, Russia and Iran had made her an outlier(异类，格格不入者) in the Republican Party. But he is nonetheless strikingly unqualified for the job. The position of DNI was created 21 years ago, after the 9/11 attacks, to co-ordinate the work of America's sprawling(庞大而杂乱扩张的) intelligence bureaucracy, whose constituent agencies were once poor at sharing secrets with one another.
普尔特先生没有加巴德那样的意识形态包袱，加巴德在叙利亚、俄罗斯和伊朗问题上的观点使她在共和党内格格不入。但他仍然极其不适合这份工作。国家情报总监一职设立于21年前，即9/11袭击之后，旨在协调美国庞大的情报官僚机构的工作，其下属机构曾经相互之间共享机密很困难。