McConnell: I’m a Liar
Oddly enough I just read this anecdote in Stephen Hayes’ hagiography of Cheney. In an interview with Hayes, Mike McConnell confesses to the childish tactics he used to force CENTCOM to commit, one way or another, whether they thought Saddam would invade Kuwait.
"I’m going to see the chairman [Powell]," [McConnell] told his colleagues. "I went up to his office on the second floor…. So I went up to the second floor and went into the executive assistant’s office, just outside the chairman’s office. There’s a little peephole–you can look in to see if he’s busy so you don’t interrupt him, that sort of thing. So I looked in and he was sitting at his desk. I came out and I walked down the hall and had a Coke and went back down. And I said: "I’ve seen the chairman and here’s what we’re going to do." I never said that I’d talked to the chairman. "I’ve seen the chairman."
Our Director of National Intelligence, you see, is the kind of man who plays the old game you did as a five year old: "I saw mom and you’re in deep trouble," I used to tell my brothers. Only, by the time I was about six, I realized it was immature and dishonest. McConnell, apparently, has made an adult career out of such tactics.
So I guess it’s no surprise that such a mental five-year old would release this statement, upon having been caught lying (HT TP).
During the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on September 10, 2007, I discussed the critical importance to our national security of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and the recent amendments to FISA made by the Protect America Act. The Protect America Act was urgently needed by our intelligence professionals to close critical gaps in our capabilities and permit them to more readily follow terrorist threats, such as the plot uncovered in Germany. However, information contributing to the recent arrests was not collected under authorities provided by the Protect America Act.
Shorter McConnell: "Okay, I lied when I told you we caught the German terrorists using the new program. But the program changes were important. Because I said so, that’s why." With absolutely no shame at having been caught in a lie.
I can see why our intellectually-impaired President likes this guy.
Only thing beats a real city slicker like that is a self-acknowledged city slicker. Call him Downtown Mikey.
Mikey â€I’ll say anything you want†McConnell.
This is a big improvement on Junya – â€I’ll say anything you want and believe it too!â€
lieberman asks you a planned question.
you give a planned reply.
that reply is in the news: repeated many times.
later, if pushed, you admit you lied.
but
the initial story is in the mainstream
and your â€apology†never even makes it so far as the obituary page.
sweet!
Well, I guess that is progress; might need an electron microscope to detect it though. Ok, maybe a bit better than that. Now, back to your Dead Awaken line; I am still non-plussed by Reyes, and that is a giant understatement. He strikes me as inexcusably lame; I really can’t figure out how or why Pelosi put him there. As to his letter; again, progress, but pretty tepid and lame still.
The Director of National Intelligence lies to Congress to make points in a politcal argument about the benefits of the recently enacted contraversial FISA law. It’s absolutley disgusting.
Do you remember when lying under oath was a crime?
â€With absolutely no shameâ€
There’s a big surprise…
It’s not comforting to know that the Director of National Intelligence is so comfortable with mis-attributing facts and spinning intelligence, and not bothered enough to acknowledge the lying aspect of it all.
Gee, where have I seen this before, such blatant politicization and sychophancy in the name of Loyalty?
Whatever else he is, McConnell isn’t worthy of safeguarding the carefully nuanced arguments that underpin a FISA that works for everybody.
He’s a PR guy.
The correction doesn’t claim that FISA was involved either. That meme was promulgated by somebody feeding crap to Reyes. See previous thread.
In other words, the PAA vs. FISA (pre-PAA) correction demanded by Reyes is the wrong correction. The fact pattern reported in this case leads to a finding that the aid given to Germany involved no acquisition of a US person’s communication, and no acquisition from a device located inside the US.
One could invoke any disrupted terrorist attack and claim certain surveillance tools are necessary to uncover them.
Well, that’s how propaganda works, right cboldt?
I was glad to see it was a strong story in this morning’s LA Times, in the first pages of â€A†â€National†section, including a couple of juicy quotes from Rep. Jane Harman:
One of them, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), said in public statements Wednesday morning that McConnell was improperly acting as a political cheerleader for the new FISA law when his job demands impartiality — and that he was getting his facts wrong in the process.
â€Excuse me, those people were under surveillance for 10 months,†she said, citing news reports. Harman, chairwoman of the intelligence panel of the House Committee on Homeland Security, also criticized McConnell for disclosing classified information about the surveillance effort to a Texas newspaper last month while Congress was debating revisions to the law. And she accused him of improperly lobbying Congress on the issue.
â€Jane to Mike, please stop undermining the authority of your office,†Harman said during a panel appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
Heh.
Actually, it’s a weird edition today. An article slamming Giuliani’s education record, another that addresses the spinning of death numbers in Iraq, including this subhead: â€Military denies its tally is designed to exclude some killings.â€, a happy drum-beat story on Bush’s upcoming speech includes this breathtaking paragraph: â€The timing of tonight’s speech, two days after the nation marked the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, provides Bush one more opportunity to make that connection as he seeks to create another turning point in the political debate about the war.†Say what? And a largish article that completely misses the point with the toothless please-Mr.-President-would-you-kinda-think-about-withdrawing-the-troops bill.
But at least it’s in the paper. I guess.