Tweet
It's always unwise to line up behind anyone engaged in a circular firing squad and no situation demonstrates that quite as dramatically as the George Tenet debacle. The authoritarian cultists are furious at Tenet for violating the code of omerta while the White House is forced to keep a rather tight lip and outsource the smear because they did, after all, give the guy the Medal of Freedom.
When is the enemy of my enemy my friend? Well not when it's George Tenet. One might be tempted to cheer as he moves Hitchens to paroxysms of blustering rage, but his performance on 60 Minutes the other night was so loathsome, so thoroughly oily and vile that there is absolutely nothing to recommend the man. He managed to deny that the US engaged in torture and pat himself on the back for being macho enough to order it at the same time. Every word out of his mouth reeked of self-serving lies. (BTW, it's good to know the old bullshit detector is working serviceably – anybody see this today on cable news and not immediately go "well, that's crap?") I imagine, though, that we'll soon be seeing more cast from the Tenet mold as others seek to save themselves by putting some real estate between them and Fearless Leader. How nice that they can find a way to make a tidy buck in the process.
I think Jeff Danziger sums up my own feelings pretty succinctly.
(cartoon used with permission by Jeff Danziger, NY Times Syndicate)
197 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Howard Dean!
ZED!
Tenet should just Sitfoo! (aka STFU!)
Wow, and I first?
Jane, the title is missing.
Feingold up on C-SPAN 3.
senate intelligence committee hearing wrt fisa on c-span3 now:
senator feingold up!
There ain’t enough real estate in the world to separate these folks from Dear Leader, Jane.
Not that this fact will keep the BushCo minions from trying, of course.
Me, too. NPR was replaying some of the 60 Minutes interview, with discussion, when I was on my way home from the store last night, and I couldn’t stand much of it. Listening to him talk about all the things that he claims to have known without being willing to admit in the slightest that he screwed up, and then pulling the standard Bushie response of trying to equate any criticism of his leadership with “attacking the fine people who worked for me.”
Grrr. It was beyond appalling, even considering the shamelessness of a crew whose failures allowed the worst attack on our soil, and then paint themselves as the “security party” because there haven’t been any more. Grrr!
selise @ 6
Yay! I hope he’ll tell them where they can stick their “the solution to our abuse of power is to give us more power.”
Michael McConnell is getting snotty. Arrogant jerk.
spurious @ 10
Getting? You mean there was a time when he wasn’t?
Bullseye!
Where was all that passion before we
destroyed the infrastructure“occupied” Iraq anddestabilized the entire region making Iran and Russia the big winnersafter he “discovered” that it was untenable for 150,000 soldiers to occupy a country of TWENTY-FIVE million?Word Press issue
I watched 60 minutes and parts of Tenet on Larry King. He can’t sit still or stop yelling, although, he looks like he has worked on his blinking while lying control a little.
Why don’t I get C-Span 3
I only have 1 and 2…
Eureka Springs @ 13
He’s crossed the Bush Crime Family and now fears for his life.
“- anybody see this today on cable news and not immediately go “well, that’s crap?”)”
Nicely timed to show that we’re making “progress” while coinciding with Bush’s veto of the Iraq spending bill. As far as the administration’s nefarious PR machinations go, this is one of the better ones. Since (supposedly) the guy wasn’t whacked by allied forces, they don’t even have to produce a body.
Sangemon @
14
Stream CSPAN3 from here
Sangemon @ 14
An excellent question for CSpan founder Brian Lamb – my cable company doesn’t carry the third station either but are unable or forbidden to explain despite the brat’s concerted attempts with my cable provider to get a straight answer.
Sangemon @ 14
can you stream from the website? that is what i’m doing.
Peterr @ 11
Guess I’ve never had to listen to him before. Definitely not a treat!
So why on earth did Clinton appoint him in the first place? The guy must have had something in his favor at some point, but I never saw it. Anyone remember?
Sangemon @
14
I have it as part of the digital cable and movies package but it requires a cable box.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, Tim, because what the reports also showed — while he did not have stock piles, and clearly the intelligence that said he did was wrong. That was the intelligence all of us saw. That was the intelligence all of us believed. It was when George Tenet sat in the Oval Office and the President of the United States asked him directly, he said, George, how good is the case against Saddam and weapons of mass destruction, the Director of the CIA said, it’s a slam dunk, Mr. President. It’s a slam dunk.
That was the intelligence that was provided to us at the time, and based upon which we made –
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news…..60910.html
That’s complete bullshit of course so I get where Tenet is coming from about that. The rest, not so much
newspaperbrat @ 18
my cable company doesn’t carry c-span3 either. but if it did, i might just be tempted to get cable tv…
DiFi asked McConnell a specific yes or no question and he is tap dancing faster than Greggory Hines ever did.
Q- Does the Pres still believe he has the right to act outside of FISA? Y or N
A- Not a simple answer. Trying to balance imminent threats with our values BS BS BS
Eureka Springs @ 13
he seemed hyped up
Veritas78 @ 21
He was confirmable by a Republic controlled congress.
Hey Jane. Hope all the chickens roosting are helping you to feel better.
ps Eureka Springs,
you are a kind person to always alert to a new thread and provide the link.
Over the past hour, Randi Rhodes has been reading and playing quotes of journalists and pundits from four years ago.
Compared the whole shit to Inhofe in Today’s paper or something saying that WMD was never an issue in IRack…
She’s hot today.
Vertas asks why Tenet from Clinton- cuz the Rethuglican Congress wouldn’t let him confirm anyone else- they had him so tied up he accepted a lower level Republican flunkie. Clinton got screwed over worse for FBI though.
Fortunately I haven’t seen Tenet – not watching the boob toob has its benefits. So I can still feel glad his is one more mucky voice against the Bush junta without being offended by the paucity of intelligence or character.
Thanks twolf1!
dakine01 @ 25
difi goes on to quote from the proposed bill – sounds like the bill makes it ok for the president to operate outside the fisa law for up to a year. will definately have to read the proposed bill, when available.
Is Bush really going to veto the Iraq funding bill tonight? I’m worried that the Irony Fairy might be working too hard. A stunt like this might give the old girl a heart attack.
this particular morsel of inconvenient truth is indeed a tasty one. : )
can’t you just imagine Bush, like Al Pacino in Godfather II: “You broke my heart, George. You broke my HEART.”
New Rule for Bill Maher: No political appointee may save pertinent information about world events from the American people for their post-officeafter office book.
Like Tenet has done.
Like Condi Rice stated she was doing on one of the shows this past Sunday. I did not see, but someone quoted her as telling (I believe Georgie S) that she would not answer hsi question about the run-up to war but was saving it for her book after she leaves office.
Anyone else see Ari Fleischer today on MSNBC, talking about how it was the CIA who “fooled” GW into believing there REALLY WERE WMD (oil?) in Iraq!!!
Tenet was the WMD fall guy all along, unfortunately he did not see it coming and became a big part of the mistake instead of exposing it.
But no doubt, Tenet willget the brunt of the WH blame game for the WMD lies, their circular machinations and ongoing subterfuge has been setting that one up since the beginning of the entire BushCo era.
Do you suppose they might have kept the Clinton-appointed Tenet on just to use him as the scapegoat?
Elliott @ 26
Sorry I missed both appearances – hyped up like a brat or hyped up as in busted lying? Oh never mind, who cares – am just trying to enjoy reports of lackluster sales of his new book of self serving spin. ;~)
Whitehouse is kicking ass.
Elliott @ 29
Thanks, I blame twolf…he used to do it…)
Frank Probst @ 34
He’s supposed to arrive back at the White House at 5:45 PM, veto the bill, then talk for 10 minutes live on TV starting at 6:10 PM.
dakine01 @ 36
What’s worse is when “journalists” do it. I’m talking to you, Woodward!
…wasn’t me
Frank Probst @ 34
If no veto, then beware of signing statements.
Terrible damage done to DOJ by AG. Stonewall on docs that cannot merit
Oops me at 45 – that’s Whitehouese in the FISA hearings
I took from 60 Minutes that Tenet was putting himself out there to show Bushie “I’m still loyal”, I suppose in the hope he’d somehow get rehabilitated.
He is the lonely dog, pining for his master’s approval, whimpering a bit and begging to be let back in.
Remember, too, that everything in his book had to be vetted by CIA, and cleared for publication. While the personality disputes which might be in there might not be subject to classification (or might, depending on who’s doing the review), every single one of the operational and intelligence details that book might reveal were approved for distribution by the CIA and, by extension, the White House.
So, in reality, this is just a propaganda exercise by the WH, trying to rehabilitate its own image on Tenet’s back. And Tenet struck every propaganda note we heard from 9/12/01 through, say, the end of 2005.
I’m still wondering what his “operational intuition” was, such that he could be so sure there were more sleeper cells and follow-on attacks waiting to happen in the immediate post-9/11 time frame. Frankly, the term “operational intuition” sounds a lot like “fantasy I and the PR boys dreamed up to keep you wetting your pants in the corner”. It’s not a term of art in any art I’m aware of.
I’m further wondering whether the realization that Bin Laden almost surely has the Pakistani intelligence and government infiltrated with his religious fanatics, and the Rethugs know they were the ones, back in the 80s, who facilitated the Pakistani A-bomb, is what they’re really freaking out over. The big fear he epxressed (beyond the smoking gun is a mushroom cloud) is that a non-state actor with an A-bomb renders all those billions in nuclear and high tech weapons … irrelvant. It surely would explain why one of the first things Bushie did was violate the Presidential Records Act and seal all those papers from the 80s.
And, he even sounded the “go to war with the army you have” line vis-a-vis Tora Bora, though it was “the intelligence you have”. Bullsh*t.
The other thing I kept reminding myself during his interview was: “this is a guy who has spent his life in the CIA, where one of the things they do best, is lie creatively.”
Whitehouse rocks!
Sen Whitehouse: You ain’t doing much to earn my trust (not those words)
McConnell: processes developed from abuses of 70s. Appropriate. I’ve made recommendations what we should disclose to this committee. Oversight is appropriate consisten with law. Tap tap tap tap.
Excellent post, JH.
Pat Lang of Sic Semper Tyrannis 2007, former DIA/HUMINT bigwig who apparently knows Tenet, sent this email out Sun. night:
“I appeal to all to abstain from buying this wretch’s book. Pat.”
Veritas78 @ 21
Clinton seemingly appointed Tenet because Clinton’s first choice Tony Lake was rejected and since Tenet had spent his career as a I wanna please staffer, he presumably would continue to suck up to Clinton as would have Lake. It is interesting that Hillary Clinton has never criticized Tenet in the context of her throroughly specious “if I had known then what I know now….” rationale for her vote on the Iraq War as opposed to to if I had done any investigation of merit “I could never have properly believed then what I did then..” Hillary had to know that Tenet was baloney when she voted for the war and that Tenet could not be relied upon. Remember it was Tenet who apologized for the CIA using an out of date tourist map for locating the Chinese Embassy when it was “mistakenly” bombed in Belgrade during the Clinton sponsored bombing. Tenet was ridiculous for years and Hillary Clinton knew it. Tenet and his careerist style fit in with Bush. Does anyone know how many hours Tenet actually spent at the White House total. He is reported to have driven there every business day to “brief” Bush. Tenet, sadly, is a very, very bad guy.
Dover Bitch @ 39
For anyone like me, who didn’t pick up immediately on what Dover meant, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
McConnell: Abuses of the 70s, abuses of the 70s, abuses of the 70s…Right.
OT: Link
Joint Update: FDA/USDA Trace Adulterated Animal Feed to Poultry
WASHINGTON, April 30, 2007 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have learned that byproducts from pet food manufactured with contaminated wheat gluten imported from China have been used in chicken feed on some farms in the state of Indiana. This information came to light as part of the continuing investigation into imported rice protein concentrate and wheat gluten that have been found to contain melamine and melamine-related compounds.
At this time, the investigation indicates that approximately 30 broiler poultry farms and eight breeder poultry farms in Indiana received contaminated feed in early February and fed it to poultry within days of receiving it. All of the broilers believed to have been fed contaminated product have since been processed. The breeders that were fed the contaminated product are under voluntary hold by the flock owners.
As with exposure from hogs fed contaminated pet food and for similar reasons related to the dilution of the contamination, FDA and USDA believe the likelihood of illness after eating chicken fed the contaminated product is very low. Because there is no evidence of harm to humans associated with consumption of chicken fed the contaminated product, no recall of poultry products processed from these animals is being issued. Testing and the joint investigation continue. If any evidence surfaces to indicate there is harm to humans, the appropriate action will be
Because the poultry being held have been fed adulterated products, USDA cannot knowingly approve products derived from these poultry for human consumption. USDA is offering to compensate producers who euthanize this poultry. USDA is also offering the expertise and assistance of Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) personnel in carrying out depopulation activities, to ensure adherence to Federal and State laws.
FDA and USDA anticipate that as the investigation continues additional farms will likely be identified that received contaminated feed. As indicated in previous updates, FDA and USDA have also traced contaminated feed to swine farms in several states. The same procedures are being followed in relation to both swine and poultry; animals are being quarantined by state order or voluntarily held by the owners and USDA is offering compensation for depopulation and disposal of both swine and poultry that have been fed contaminated products.
USDA and FDA continue to conduct a full, comprehensive examination to protect the nation’s food supply and will provide updates as new information is confirmed.
####
WHAT NEXT?
paraphrasing Whitehouse:
“The AG’s Office has completely and utterly lost my confidence. So the the extent to which this new FISA bill involves the AG’s office, it ain’t gonna fly”.
McConnell: just updating FISA to make technology neutral. All privacy provisions remain?
Gotta keep C-Span-3 hidden from the elderly voters.
spurious @ 53
wrong. (i know you know this – but i gotta say it)
mcconnell keeps restating a falsehood (ie – lie) that the fisa law was done in response to abuses in the ’70s.
this is false.
the abuses, which were UNCOVERED in the ’70s (the church committee hearings), but had been going on for DECADES.
spurious @ 53
Lots of Republic control of the WH during the 70’s so it’s understandable that there were abuses.
ccmask @ 57
Say what? Elaborate, please.
Earnest young lawyer there from DCI’s counsel office seems to be trying to save McConnell from too much embarassment.
scribe- So the CIA goes to war with the Feith based “operational intuition” we dream up..not the facts.
Could Tenet be facing war criminal charges someday? (I can dream too)
= Hitchens and Tenet:
Pot meet kettle.
(Reminds me when Hitchens fingered the Real Time audience last year.)
AAG for National Security is tap dancing around Sen Levin’s questions on the current FISA orders.
retirin’ in five @ 60
We’re all likely to short a fuse, pop a cork, and die of shame and rage.
Peterr @
7
I’m not sure if it’s putting real estate between them and the idiot-in-chief so much as it’s a chance for the ones who never got their personal shopping bag full of shrink-wrapped Fed money to make some money off this sinking ship.
Anyone who read David Frum’s 2003 book “The Right Man” read that in an interview in February, 2001, Bush told Frum one of his first orders of business was regime change in Iraq. For the life of me I don’t know why this bit, written by one of Bush’s cheerleaders, hasn’t been thrown in his face whenever there’s a denial about his intentions towards Iraq from day one.
This guy Waistain looks quite ill at ease answering Levin. He’s gonna break out in a sweat in a moment.
retirin’ in five @ 60
Most cable syetems that have CSpan3, have it on a digital/higher priced tier requiring a box and buying channels that don’t get a lot of traffic whereas CSpan 1 & 2 are generally available without the box.
retirin’ in five @ 60
Plllease! Just my opinion. I always miss the good stuff on C-Span 3 and after all, if its just a flick of the switch, why don’t I get in on my tv? Isn’t $85.00 a month enough?
My mother only gets C-Span 1 in her condominum and I was always wondering if it was to prevent her and her lady friends from knowing what’s going on in the world.
Benjamin Powell is one of these guys who says a mouthful and nothing at all.
The Intel folks do NOT like Levin’s question on AG letter from January.
Is there anything more dispicable than saying that he knew the country was being mislead but said nothing??? 3000 dead 25,000(or more) wounded and the guy is stupid enough to go on a book tour and tell us that there wasn’t enough debate before going to war. Does he think this will endear him to us? Personally, if I had the power, I’d be scouring the laws to see if there was a way he could be charged with treason.
CSPAN 3
bullshit
Powell – WEASEL.
dakine01 says
Not Dish Network, unfortunatly
selise @ 33
Walter Pincus had some tidbits from an earlier draft of it. Considering what we know of how they abused the powers they’ve already been given, it all sounds indefensible to me.
They absolutely WON”T say anything in public will they?
Election Day is a very busy day at the condo. They plan the day a month before and try to work in the early bird right after it. But everytime I tell her what is going on in the world, she looks at me as if she thinks I’m making it up. She just may think that her daughter is off the deep end. She always says “Oh, please, then how come I never heard that?” I tell her to lower the volume on Fox so that we can have a conversation. Bill O’Lielly keeps all the condo commanders in line.
“Technology-neutral.” WFT?carolyn urban @ 74
Please, you’re insulting a lot of cute furry animals.
Republican meme is why FISA update is needed. Olympia Snowe hit this and so is Kit Bond now. Now Bond covering when Clinton used warrantless searches to justify things. More BS.
Kit Bond at the FISA hearings: Clinton did it!!
Ccmask, dkaine, etal…..oh. Duh. Thanks. Tubes — TV — Cspan–streaming thing can be very confusing. Too many drugs in youth. Or not enough. Never know.
Cozumel @ 75
Nor DIRECT WAY. I have every channel they sell and like newspaperbrat mentioned about her cable co, they will not tell me why or how to get cspan3.
Johnny Lib @ 63
I was there! I couldn’t bear to watch most of Jon Stewart’s interview with Hitchens, but I did catch one great bit (transcript from memory):
retirin’ in five @ 82
For myself, never enough GOOD drugs in youth OR now! ;})
True. I don’t want to insult vegetables or rocks either, so how about Powell – OILY and SMUG.
I just called Dish Network and asked if I could have C-Span3 added to my package and the representative told me they are still in negotiations with that network and they have rec’d many calls from people requesting it. She said they don’t have any idea when or if it will be available but she would note my call because if they get enough requests it may bear weight on the outcome.
OH JEEBUS! Here we go with Sandy Freakin’ Berger again. GIVE ME AN EF’FING BREAK!
Kit Bond bringing up Sandy Berger!!
Kit Bond – Get Sandy Berger
dakine01 @ 80
Yep. While I’m not happy the did it, Clinton’s staff determined that the law allowed what they were doing, and their interpretation was upheld. Congress considered it a loophole and changed the law, and Clinton supported the change.
It’s not hard to imagine what would have happened in a similar situation under Bush.
dakine01 @ 61
Do you mean Benjamin Powell? Did a little background check and he seems pretty sharp. He went to real law schools.
http://ftp.fas.org/irp///news/…..010506.pdf
Bill Nelso: go back to line of questioning before. Person of interest outside US. We may not know if person within US is citizen, that requires FISA order?
A: depends on where intercept,
2nd person: depends on type of intercept as well
Marie Roget @ 50
DING!
Wasn’t the big deal about Tenet’s book going to be that he sold Cheney down the river? I haven’t heard anything about this, does anybody know if it’s true? (I forget if his book’s actually been released yet.)
George Tenet makes my skin crawl. What a lieing, self serving, pompous jerk (a lot like our decider?). But, remember he is but one cog in the wheel that took us to invade and occupy a sovereign nation.
carolyn urban @ 86
You could just say “lower than a weasel.” That way you’re not equating them with how low this administration is, which should avoid provoking the weasel anti-defamation league. *g*
Why is Kit Bond going on and on about Sandy Berger removing docu,ments from the Archives?
WTF is this all about? Sounds like a typical day when the GOP was running things. There’s actually a Democrat chairing this hearing on changes to FISA and he’s allowing this declaration from the vice chair?
And the same vice chairman is saying that the president has sufficient authority to issue a warrantless tap and that FISA is an illegitimate law because it wasn’t set up under the Constitution? Am I hearing things here? A law becomes a law when Congress writes it and the president signs it. All this talk about the COnstitution is a smoke screen.
John Casper @ 52
Yeah, sorry.
Sen. Whitehouse listed several ways the DOJ has violated the trust of the people. He said flatly that he had absolutely no confidence in AG Gonzales. Then he capped his monologue by remarking that the Senate was being asked to trust a group of people who would not offer any comments or explanation into what limits on the president’s authority he or the DOJ interpreted to exist. He said transparency was essential and it wasn’t forthcoming.
Finally, he said they had to do some “uphill sledding” to get his support.
Nelson working on if person is reasonably believed to be in US and what conditions would be used.
Wainstein: can’t answer in open session but we have to use info we have.
Nelson seems to be trying to figure out how and why they feel they can go after US residents and citizens.
I wanted to post something that I thought was quite ODD and was wondering if some of those with sage words might also.
http://www.star-telegram.com/279/story/84933.html
Just how in heck are terrorists going to be training for flying aircraft in IRAQ? And I would doubt that this would be possible in Somalia either, even when the Islamists held Djibouti. That would leave Pakistan…but how they could do such training without the cooperation of the Pakistani Intelligence Service is beyond me.
But it would seem that the Saudis need to have a good long talk with Mr. Musharraf and perhaps the US gov’t for allowing this activity to go on within a country that is ostensibly “our ally”.
I’ll bring up another odd tid-bit in a minute…this next one about how, when and where the US captured that Al Qaida terrorist that they suddenly decided to reveal as a “success” in the war against terror.
Marie Roget @ 50
And hopefully the fact that he goes off the reservation will mean there won’t be wingnut-welfare bulk purchases to drive up its sales numbers.
OT to dak — we’re just a couple of those old f’g hippies hangin’ at FDL. You know. The far left.
Redshift @ 97
And lower than a weasel is VERY low.
newspaperbrat @ 94
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2 in Books
http://www.amazon.com/dp/00611…..nkCode=asn
retirin’ in five @ 103
Roger that! I was a McGovern delegate back in the day. Did not make many friends as I was in ROTC at the time as well! They all thought I was a DFH and I had a ball with it.
The Good Rockefeller is giving a kind of mission statement for the hearings now.
Frank Probst @ 34
Maybe he’ll resign tonight.
Jane – here’s some more scrambling:
Interior official quits ahead of hearing
Jeff Danziger: The Spiritual Heir to Bill Mauldin, the best editorial cartoonist ever to pick up a pen.
Just in case anybody here doesn’t remember… When you’re listening to Sen. Bond blather on about partisan nonsense, all you need to know about him is that all the lies about Ambassador Joe Wilson that appeared in the 2004 “Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq” were contained in the “Additional Views” section authored by him, along with Chairman Pat Roberts and Orrin Hatch.
cinnamonape @ 101
The ISI has a long history of working with and protecting Islamic fundamentalists, so that may be your answer. They’re a power center in Pakistan, and not one that Musharraf fully controls. He knows they could bring him down if he pushes them too hard.
Nelson
“We want to prevent the build up of a dictator”
Phoenix Woman @ 110
Wonder what Willie and Joe think about what’s happenin’ in Iraq?
Wyden walking through a change of what happens with physical searches.
Dak @ 106. I had a McGovern T-shirt. Wore it everywhere. One day in the mid-seventies it went into the washer and never came out. Seinfeldesque demise.
anyone read the reid press release yet?
it looks like he reads here at the lake because his release looks like it was taken directly from some of our posts, though I would have preferred pelosi say it I guess the fun has to be spread around;
Wyden: Bill would permit info gathered in secret search even if warrant denied. What is rationale for this change?
McConnell: I’ll let lawyers answer but threat may drive this.
Counsel: Senator, you represented words correctly.
Phoenix Woman @
110
You mean you never heard of Herblock (Herbert Block)?
WASHINGTON – North Carolina’s
John Edwards says he’s the only Democratic presidential candidate with any chance of winning the coveted South.
If early fundraising is any indication, he might be right.
snip
But in money raised in the South, Edwards was the leader. From Louisiana to the Carolinas, Edwards easily beat his Democratic rivals and — perhaps more importantly — raised more money than the top three Republican candidates combined.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..oney_south
Lower than a weasle is a slug.
Phoenix Woman @ 110
NICE PW.
retirin’ in five @ 116
In early ‘73, I got a bumper sticker for my ol’ VW: Don’t blame me, I voted for George (McGovern folks).
OT: Another one bites the dust.
http://www.rawstory.com/showar…..esignation
Interior Dept Official quits ahead of hearing.
Frank Probst @ 34
Thought someone on the teevee said he was going to veto it tomorrow, apparently for the reason you mentioned…
Redshift @ 91
And wasn’t Clinton’s use of the FISA “loopholes” (i.e. the FBI followed to the letter the existing law) the thing that allowed him to arrest Aldrich Ames. It was all done legally by the contemporay FISA.
http://www.brainshrub.com/aldrich-ames-case
But it was the Republican controlled House that threw a firt and revised the FISA law. I bet if you check up on it many of those howling in this hearing about “Clinton did it too” know very well that the law was changed, and they voted for those changes. In fact they DEMENDED THE CHANGES.
Ron WydenDiane @ 121
How about a mite in the ass of a slug in the ass of a weasle?
Wolf Blitzer came off pretty odious last night. He had on a guest, an “intelligence expert” ostensibly. They brought up Larry Johnson’s open letter to Tenet and the guest stated that it did not reflect the intelligence community by and large, e.g. suggesting that Johnson was some fringe type.
I am not going to buy Tenet’s book, because I am pretty sure Johnson is right and it is a selfish vindication of a man who could have stopped 3000 plus 100,000 dead and untold injuries and loss of property and the devastation of a country, etc.. There are plenty of books to be written on the subject by those who feel compelled to set the record state and want justice.
I am keeping as far away from visual or audio contact with any of these people as possible. Since I don’t watch TV news (EVER), it’s much easier than it used to be. Under the circumstances, this blog post is as close as I ever want to get.
Nothing you reported about Tenet surprises me, of course. I suppose some people out there will be shocked, but the overall depth of the corruption, venality, mendacity, etc. etc. of what constitutes our ruling classes is more than reason enough to hope that this entire stinking, flaming, heartless shitheap of a contemporary American way of life collapses ASAP. After that happens, maybe we can talk about reform. But just like the people in the water as the Titanic was sinking, we should be very wary of getting too close while the ship is going down.
Think Rand-McNally “white space,” and you’ll be on the right track.
From TPM Muckraker:
House Committee Readies for Gonzales Redo
Oops, Stephen Parrish CPA @ 109, you beat me to it. You linked it better, too.
FYI Moveon.org Pac is organizing Emergency Veto rallies around the country tomorrow. Follow the link to find one near you. Thus ends my Public Service Announcement
Diane @ 121
Lower than a weasel is Whale Sh*t on the bottom of the ocean.
Phoenix Woman @
110
Danziger is great, but David Horsey has a great take on today’s 4th anniversary.
Rocky: Why is this change necessary? Has FISA fallen down on the job?
Wainstein: Allows AG to direct communications companies to provide support and allows the comm company to appeal to courts.
noen @ 113
Yeah, he said something to the effect of we need to know the president will act within the law and not just do what he wants. Now Senator Bond will assure us that this is the case…something like that, and the dictator remark!!
Judicial review through the FISA court??
Isn’t this an oxymoron? That court has always been a rubber stamp and what sort of review is legitimate that has no transparency?
matt @ 136
A fig leaf and nothing more.
mui @ 128
Reminds me of McCain on the Daily Show, about how the troops feel about the war — “you’re entitled to your opinion, but the majority believe…”, i.e., you have an opinion, but I have the facts. Feh.
I bet the CIA analyst I met at the YearlyKos fundraiser in DC a few weeks ago would disagree with that guest…
Morris Sheppard @ 119
The old (old) New Yorker magazine had quite a few IIRC
in re Tenet’s book being ranked #2 on Amazon (sorry I’m so crappy with blockquotes):
Well, I guess mesquite has fallen out of favor as the fuel of choice for this summer’s barbecues…
Rockafeller
Is the Governemt try to limit the information available to the FISA court and if so why?
Wainstein
blah balh balh
Well, then you have the a**holes of the bottomfeeders eating the whalesh*t. And that brings us back to Benjamin Powell.
Powell and Wainstein: Too much hard work. Can’t work so hard on these things.
Rocky picked up on the “burden” argument and slaps it DOWN.
noen @ 142
Powel
Its a huge burden to follow the law.
Cozumel @ 105
Looks like Amazon might be aggressively deleting reviews.
Re FISA:
Don’t change the law, obey the law and hold those who disobeyed the law accountable, period. What is wrong with these people.
gonna love this;
Did Powell just say he had not heard any reasonable arguments on changing things?
HE must not realize that you do NOT challenge the oversight with words like “I have not heard reasonable argument.” Mr Powell, it ain’t your place to determine what is reasonable and what isn’t reasonable.
Rocky: (Not in these words): You may not like our answers.
Sandy Berger = Red Herring = Limp Flounder = Germaine Jackson
(getting maximum mileage from this one)
:)
OT – DeLay’s PAC closes shop
perris @ 148
Ummmm, she wasn’t 24-35 w/ at least 2yrs of college and in need of some extra cash, was she?
Americans For Change just ran a bring our troops home commercial on CNN.
perris @ 148
Where do they find these characters? I’d like to see her emails with the WH telling her how and what to do and when. They are the fixers of the facts to fit all of their evil policies.
I believe so. And her specialty? Exotic furs.
It seems to me that the CW among the Wise Men might be either changing and/or a little bit behind the curve here. Prior to this week the blather was that Dems will put forward a bill to fund the war, Bush will veto it, and then the Dems will fold and give him the money with no restrictions. Even Levin and Obama (to their discredit) seemed to subscribe to this scenario.
With the increasing public support of withdrawal and not funding this war without some restraint on an out of control executive, an an amazing total of 64% of Americans wanting this war to end now, or in at most a year, and saying Congress should use what powers it has to make that happen, along with even R’s showing some wavering in support of the Chimp-in-Chief, that game plan appears to be no longer operative.
Look for Congress to not roll over and offer up a “clean” funding bill. Hooray!
And Impeachment? While Murtha – recently the bellwether of Democratic concience and resistance on this war, says it is not yet appropriate to talk of impeachment, it at least seems to be “on the table” if not yet ready to seve.
When it is ready to serve, it will be delicious!
Solai @ 152
Was her name Monica?
lisadawn82 @ 132
Hmmm, if I can make it, I’m really tempted:
This is from Romano’s column Jane noted up top:
That’ll hit the remainder table at the Dollar Store by June!
.
Romano’s advice? –
Will George Tenet’s book be a dud?
Bond:
2183 FISA requests a year – 110,000 pages of documents
FISA hearing is adjourned.
Good grief, I’m going to puke…this is regarding food contamination…they made soy sauce from human hair..
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..31936/6888
Bond is admitting this is all Kubuki theatre.
“We all know why it appears the witnesses haven’t been forth comming.”
Perris@119
Thanks for Reid’s statement – my cable was murked up with bad sound and lousy cable feed.
Harry Reid annoyed me by patting Madame Speaker on the back that looked awfully patronizing to me – she didn’t miss a beat and displayed – dare I say it out loud – presidential forebearance of the ole boy’s gaffe.
Cozumel @ 105
Thanks Coz.
Here’s an example of one of nine current reviews:
FDLers can use Coz’s Amazon link to rate each review. Right now the majority are rating this particular review as “not helpful.” That strongly suggests to me that the publisher (and Tenet’s friends) are trying to skew the results to make the book sell.
carolyn urban @ 155
707!
LS @ 162
Yummm, those aren’t sesame seeds, those are lice.
Redshift @
102
Lang is a Dem. Big supporter of Jim Webb BTW. Read up on him since you seem to be uninformed.
spinn @
95
From what I’ve heard, he does dish a lot of dirt on Cheney, so I think it is reasonable to suppose that a lot of the dirt coming back at him is being flung by Cheney ops, because they have the most to lose.
Tenet is a sleazy operator. But let’s not assist Cheney’s goons in trying to discredit Tenet out of hand.
Bob in HI
lisadawn82 @ 133
More like a dung beetle who adores nothing more than sleeping with shit.
perris @ 148
Can a real scientist also be a loyal Bushie?
SSCI hearing on FISA just concluded. Help! We need some expert help in decoding what was said (and what was left unsaid).
I did catch Jay Rockefeller commenting that he has absolutely no confidence in Gonzales’ role in FISA-related matters.
Bob in HI
Stephen Parrish, CPA @ 130
And the time limit to respond (remember what he could not recall?) in writing about his testimony before the Senate committee elapses before then if my memory is correct.
John Casper @ 165
Cozumel @ 105
newspaperbrat @ 94
Marie Roget @ 50
Excellent post, JH.
Pat Lang of Sic Semper Tyrannis 2007, former DIA/HUMINT bigwig who apparently knows Tenet, sent this email out Sun. night:
“I appeal to all to abstain from buying this wretch’s book. Pat.”
DING!
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2 in Books
http://www.amazon.com/dp/00611…..nkCode=asn
Thanks Coz.
Here’s an example of one of nine current reviews:
FDLers can use Coz’s Amazon link to rate each review. Right now the majority are rating this particular review as “not helpful.” That strongly suggests to me that the publisher (and Tenet’s friends) are trying to skew the results to make the book sell.
TOTALLY agree – DO NOT buy this lying, self-serving little sleazebag-killer’s book.
zig alert
Diane @ 121
Might offend lurking UC Santa Cruz alums. Cockroach?
dakine01 @ 61
That’s what Olbermann’s guest said last night – that in effect Tenet had committed a war crime.
Veritas78 @ 21
David Boren (R), former Senator from Oklahoma was making postive comments about Tenet on one of the news shows (PBS?). I believe there was connection there but I was barely listening. Tenet may have worked for Boren.
Badwater @ 171
that goes in the oxymoron department
Chuck Taylor @ 178
It was Boren (v Larry Johnson) on the NewsHour
Chuck Taylor @ 1:55 -
He is supposed to submit his written response on or before May 4 to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
OT Andrea Koppel is an idiot.
Subway Serenade @ 30
Inhofe claimed WMDs were not the reason for Iraq invasion. They were just incidental.
The press made up the WMD story because they knew Saddam had used them before. He said this
April 27 at a fundraiser in Tulsa.
FYI, new thread
Eureka Springs @ 184
thank you, kind person
I get all my food at a local organic supermarket. AIN’T NEVER GOIN’ BACK TO “NORMAL” FOOD!!!
There really is no choice, and you just made my commitment more solid.
I meant to quote #62:
scribe- So the CIA goes to war with the Feith based “operational intuition” we dream up..not the facts.
Could Tenet be facing war criminal charges someday? (I can dream too)
oops.
retirin’ in five @ 116
Did it come back as an odd sock? this is what always happens when I loose things in the laundry.
Tenet is a “repulsive” liar. Larry King should have snapped his suspenders at him.
I think the real reason Tenet waited until now to tell his story is he was waiting to see if the war turned out badly, otherwise he would’nt have a case or interest for a book if it had turned out successful. He did’t want to run the risk of looking silly, instead he is just pathetic. I don’t blame him for selling out the Bush administration for 4 mill though. Maybe he can buy enough wet-wipes to clean the blood of American soldiers off his hands.
Tenet was on Boren’s staff.
Here is the second thing I wanted to raise…perhaps fodder for a future post.
This relatescto the so-called “recent capture” of an al-Qaida operative by the US.
http://voanews.com/english/2007-04-27-voa40.cfm
It’s pretty clear that the “US” didn’t capture this guy but he was actually captured and transferred TO the CIA for interrogation by a third party.
The Pentagon spokesman refused to state WHICH country because it was too sensitive to reveal. Now clearly neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan has any issue with announcements of the capture of Al-Qaida individuals. Neither would the Saudis ~ who just announced a vast sweep of their own. In fact, it’s hard to think that any country WOULD have an issue with announcing their cooperation UNLESS there was either a “forced rendition” (Italy comes to mind here) OR the CIA doesn’t want to announce the cooperation of that country (or its intelligence service) for an entirely different reason.
Whitman also says al-Iraqi met with al-Qaida members in Iran shortly before his capture….he was captured when he was apparently in the process of taking on a new assignment. “At the time of his capture, he was trying to return to his native country, Iraq”
Pakistan sources say that al-Iraqi left the country in 2005 and had not returned since.
So, just maybe, our deadly “undeclared” enemy…IRAN…
has been cooperative in transferring al-Qaida terrorists to U.S. custody. Of course, the U.S. may not be entirely willing to reveal this….and neither might Iran, or sub-sectors within Iran, who might fear cooperation with the U.S. might make them an al Qaida tarket.
LS @
162
Well, that’s why they call it “Kinko Man”!
LS @
162
Well, let’s hope that human had clean hair and didn’t lick his comb!
Bush inherited Tenet. Clinton hired him. It’s almost as if Clinton intentionally sabotaged Bush prewar intelligence by sliding Tenet into the Bush administration.
Furthermore, Tenet tells enough obvious lies in his mea culpa to make suspect everything he says. All his criticisms of the administration are lies. The intelligence was bad because Tenet is a lying Clintonite who’s just trying to cover his ass with the book. Anybody can see through it – it’s all Clinton’s fault.
I was wondering how long it would be before someone mentioned omerta in connection with the Bush administration. Congratulations, Jane!
leftdcin72 @ 51