Don't get us wrong, here: we're immensely grateful to The Powers That Be that Steve Jobs's cancer and surgery weren't more serious. Still, we have to admit, we're more than a little bummed about the timing; now that Steve's convalescence has more or less put him out of action for a month, we suppose we can just plumb forget about him winning the November election. Losing an entire month's worth of campaigning and baby-kissing a mere twelve weeks before the polls open is probably one of the most catastrophic things that can happen to a presidential campaign. Granted, it's arguably less calamitous to Steve's chances of winning than the fact that he's not actually running for office or that he doesn't want the job in the first place, but in our eyes, this whole "month off" thing really clinches it.

Of course, if Steve's just looking to get his tendrils into the federal government, then he might consider finding another position that's a little better suited to his unique abilities. When you hear about the state of the country's various intelligence agencies (lots of work happening all over the place, but massive communication failures preventing anything from coming together into worthwhile results), are you reminded of Apple in the mid-nineties? Because we just can't shake the image of all those pre-Amelio Apple employees doing whatever they thought they should be working on, while no one had an eye on the details or the big picture-- until Steve showed up, of course.

So the way he turned Apple into a focused and effective company again might just land him a gig in Washington. Faithful viewer gbois pointed out an NPR segment in which a reporter eventually recommends that Steve by whisked away to Washington to fix the nation's allegedly broken security network; at the end of a four-and-a-half-minute segment examining possible solutions to the "information sharing" problem which prevents critical information from getting into the hands of the people who need it most, Larry Abramson has this to say: "So, members of Congress might want to look outside Washington for a real visionary. They might ask, say, Apple's Steve Jobs to spend some time as National Intelligence Director. He knows something about shaking up an organization and bringing it back from the brink of collapse."

Granted, this is just an off-the-cuff remark by a radio correspondent and not an invitation from the White House, but aside from that, what do you think? We have a feeling that Steve could do far more to advance his secret plans for world domination in a sneaky, under-the-radar National Intelligence Director role than he could as Commander-in-Chief, which attracts a little too much attention. Indeed, we're starting to wonder if Larry Abramson's comment was an off-the-cuff remark, and not a Reality Distortion Field-induced rogue thought planted by Steve himself, just to get the prez and Congress thinking "hmmmmmmmm."

Think of it: Steve as Intelligence Czar, "overseeing and coordinating the 'foreign and domestic activities of the intelligence community.'" Why, he'd be wearing the high-cowled cape of Supreme Overlord of Earth inside of two years. What could be better?