http://www.etherzone.com/2007/stang062207.shtml

In January, new Boosh Administration passport rules took effect. Americans traveling to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda now need one. Until now, Americans did not need passports to travel to those areas, and millions did so. If you were making such a dramatic change, what would you do? Answer: You would prepare.

You would expect the new rule to make an enormous amount of new work for the passport agency – millions of new passport applications – requiring a corresponding, enormous increase in agency staff and funding. What did the Jorge W. Boosh Administration do instead? For the record, they hired a few people – nowhere near as many as the change would require – nothing more.

In a briefing last Friday morning, Maura Harty, the assistant secretary for consular affairs, acknowledged that the State Department did not expect the flood of applications. “What we did not anticipate adequately enough was the American citizens' willingness and desire to comply with the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative in the timeframe that they did,â€