The men who rule us and protect us are just that: men, not supermen. Even persons with the most urgent life-and-death tasks before them, and who therefore may have been chosen for their special abilities and commitment, and trained with special skills, are just human.

They are fallible. They can make mistakes. So they should be checked. Double-checked. Monitored. Evaluated. That includes the folks who run the nation’s intelligence community. Maybe this just seem like common sense to you, in which case, hey, you’ve tuned into the right show.

Recent depressing news from overseas reminds us of how important the monitoring can be. But there was also an item from last April about a hoax that made it to the top of the government’s threat matrix. Somebody tipped off the FBI about a terrorist organization that was purportedly planning chemical attacks in DC and London. The group was said to be founded by an evil millionaire named Don Emilio Fulci. Even FBI director Robert Mueller was briefed about this dire threat.

Well, if you’re a gamester, you’re ahead of me. Fulci turns out to be crime boss of a video game called Headhunter. Somebody at the White House discovered this fact after doing a web search. A revised order went out: Stand down. Thank goodness for Google, eh? But we should not be too quick to chuckle or chastise. After all, the intelligence is well aware of how much “noise” is out there along with solid leads. It’s a struggle to separate the wheat from the chaff. They’re only human.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.