1. Anonymous says:

    Hayden is Negroponte’s deputy now, he’s not at the NSA (I think this is what you’re saying). He mentioned at today’s press conference that’s he is good friends with Tenet and Goss, there’s also the hurdle of turning down a Presidential request.

  2. Anonymous says:

    True, he already accepted a supposed promotion up. But I just don’t get it. Who, in their right mind, would want DCI? It’s like agreeing to become the apartment manager for a condemned tenement.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Great question, emptywheel. Caught this on Hardball, author of Jarhead, Gary Berntsen, made it sound as though getting Steven Cappas (fired by Goss) back to the CIA as number 2, is worth accepting Hayden as number 1. Perhaps Bush is dangling Cappas a bait to the CIA to get their support for Hayden?
    Tweety also opined that Bush’s nomination of Hayden was a naked attempt to move corporate media back to covering domestic security as a way of shoring up Bush’s base. The fact that this continues to destabilize our intelligence efforts (by encouraging turf wars, (just as Bush has destabilized the Middle East)), is of no concern at the WH. They’ll do anything to stop the JAR sliding south.

  4. Anonymous says:

    James Bamford opinied on Tweety that Hayden’s career path, as an Air Force General, is to be Chief of Staff for the Air Force, a Rumsfeld decision. Perhaps Hayden’s orders are to take over the CIA, continue to destroy it, move it under DoD control, and then Rummy will â€promote†him out of that job back to Air Force Chief of Staff?

  5. Anonymous says:

    a loyal soldier would make the move. and one who is as cleary intelligent (and I believe, as partisan) as hayden is would make this move, to make absolutely sure that the emasculation of CIA is complete, and that as much power as possible is brought under DoD control. It shouldn’t take more than a year, if Congress continues to play dead.

  6. Anonymous says:

    John Casper

    Thanks for watching Tweety so I don’t have to.

    So he’s just being a good soldier? Gosh, I hope he’s seen the â€Legend of Colin Powell.â€

  7. Anonymous says:

    Well, Cool Blue has noted that Hayden will be the 7th military leader of CIA. As we know, Operations Officer #6 died badly, leading us to Lieutenant Commander Bond, James, OO#7. So, now it’s Operations Officer Hayden, Michael V(like in Victory). OO#7 he’s not Navy, but that’s okay.

    We all know MI5 came out and is losing. That is really because of the Directorship conspiracy in the intelligence community that lead to the new Directors of MI5 and MI6. One is an operations officer who ran the london bombers. Not our problem, but Straws and later Blairs. Next year is 2 OO7. The real year of Bond. The movie will include the issue. So, yes, he should take the job because it is good for the British economy and it’s the end of the CIA anyway, hopefully timed for next year(it’s not okay to wait over the movie, the sooner the better).

    The Hayden errors are already evident. He wants to transfer analyst and keep CIA focused on Directorate of Operations work. The real answer is they all should be laid off, like any other union when the employees are no longer needed. Hayden already made the mistake of trying to keep employed something that has no value and, in fact, costs WAY TOO MUCH.

    Oh ya, he’s Air Force so he knows the aliens are really from Satan and the same with their technology so no one will talk about it.

  8. Anonymous says:

    I’m wondering if Hayden isn’t a set up for strengthening the Republican party along the lines of Harriet Miers?

    Hastert now is opposed to Hayden, Negroponte and Hayden have been suggested by Steve Clemons to be trying to fight back against Rumsfeld. Maybe all these Republicans publicly opposing Hayden are for Rummy and have an Alito-like Shadow Candidate in the wings?

    It would be another callous strategy by the WH but it clearly isn’t beyond them.

  9. Anonymous says:

    It seems that DiFi and Jane Harman are already cowering behind skirts and are ready to give Gen. â€no 4th amendment†Hayden a pass.

    Reminiscent of the 2002 mid-term season when Bush-Cheney-Rove were pushing Iraq and all the Dems wanted to do so bad was to change the subject to health care and let Rove paint them in a corner over national security and terrorism.

    Will the generic ballot advantage wither on the vine of DC Dems fear?

  10. Anonymous says:

    when i was a lot younger,

    i used to have no interest in history at all, except for stories about edison or j.p. jones, or j.p. morgan, et al.

    now i have come to a different appreciation,

    history is one hell of a great coach.

    but only a coach,

    we still must act in our own way in our own times.

  11. Anonymous says:

    Hayden essentially gutted the field operational and technology development capability at NSA. He’s the ideal person to execute the same procedure at CIA.

  12. Anonymous says:

    Hayden will, in his own style, continue Goss’ role as the occupying governor of a vanquished agency. A good assignment for a General. Reinstating a few banished leaders makes up his not being a native like Goss.

    It’s a big advance for the Pentagon, though. Having an Air Force General in command makes it clear to every analyst and operative that the first priority of intelligence is to identify the best targets to bomb.

  13. Anonymous says:

    Tweety also opined that Bush’s nomination of Hayden was a naked attempt to move corporate media back to covering domestic security as a way of shoring up Bush’s base.

    It’s a very good question as to why Hayden would want this job. The advantage does seem to be all on the adminisration’s side. Obvious why they want him. Fresh meat! A con like this needs a steady supply – people they can debase, humiliate, betray. I’m not making apologies for Hayden at all, but EW’s reference to Patrick Gray and other betrayals is apt.

  14. Anonymous says:

    Also…

    what is it with these intelligence guys and their cigars?

    Sometimes a cigar isn’t just a cigar, sometimes it is. I think some of this stuff is in fact cock worship, but not just because the cigar itself is something long you can
    suck     on and get wet and fetish, etc. It’s cultish. Almost totemistic, like growing your beard very long.

  15. Anonymous says:

    I have a slightly different take on this Hayden nomination. I think that, yes, BushCo wants a fight on domestic wiretapping. They may win it (with help with the Quisling Feinsteins of the world). If so, they have used the Senate to legitimate the policy in the person of Gen. Michael V. â€Heinrich†Hayden (people are policy, so the GOPers say!). Next mission: expand domestic black bagging, such that no psychiatrist office is ever immune from midnight scrutiny again – it’s what the ops folks at CIA know how to do best, after all.

    So why would Hayden want the job? Once a chicken farmer, always a chicken farmer.

  17. Anonymous says:

    Does this work?
    1. Cheney is CEO and COO of the Bush administration, which is fine with Bush.
    2. People who have resisted this arrangement (Tenet, Powell, Clarke) have been sidelined.
    3. Cheney’s regime is at risk from the Fitzgerald investigation, but for the time being is basically intact and functioning.
    4. Cheney insists on having loyalists in key positions.
    5. Rumsfeld is Cheney’s ally
    6. From the CEO/COO’s point of view, the Negroponte and Hayden appointments are relatively routine personnel adjustments to ensure a smoothly functioning, ‘unitary’ executive branch.
    7. As John Casper suggests, Hayden can expect to be rewarded for loyal service.

  20. Anonymous says:

    NPR a few years ago broadcast an interesting bilingual radio program about educated readers who would read literature aloud to cigar assemblers, in FL or perhaps in CU; for some reason the indigenous searchengine at NPR is being recalcitrant or I would send you the link. But I think the image as your first commenter coined it neatly was appropriate, like Sherlock.

    I collected some links about a few presidents’ appointees to the position to which Hayden is nominated, first finding Carter had appointed Stansfield Turner, who, similarly was criticized for his navy brass background and the subsequent flight of seasoned senior executives at CIA. Turner’s emphasis was on having the world’s best technology. I do not follow these kinds of intelligence histories, so, I rely on the insights of the other visitors here. The links: Stansfield Turner, Carter’s CIA DI, speaks about Cheney’s support for the detainee torturePolicy. Turner eliminates spys; replaces them with surveys. Commander of 7th fleet in 1968 off Viet Nam U Maryland. Turner’s post-employment book criticizing CIA and Carter was redacted at CIA pre-publication in 1977.

    Turner’s key change of course of CIA was to assure technical methods of information gathering (imagery, electronic signal intercepts…) superiority to CCCP techInt.

    Now, Hayden is a different person, with different credentials in different times. Immediately I thought of the datamining wiretap which surely must have followed the 911 event within minutes, beginning with the grounding of all air traffic nationwide, and much of the gear to do that is housed on airborne platforms, giving Hayden something like first responder credentials for the pax which ensued. So I would wait to see how he explains his goals in the hearing. Markos and Sara probably have lots of insight on this. And you will note some of the links I found in the first skim show how polarized commentary is with regard to the office to which Hayden is nominated. There are many things fascinating about the job, but for individuals immersed, it must take fortitude.

  21. Anonymous says:

    The Hayden controversy as diversion! They extended the Bush tax cuts while we discussed the CIA! I knew there must be some ruse behind the Republican opposition to Hayden!

  22. Anonymous says:

    The neat tale of the Cuban emigrees who wrapped cigars in FL in century XIX is here; it is a historical interview, needless to say, as in that epoch there were no audio recordings. It still seems incongruous to contemplate cigar wrapping personnel listening to a reading of poet Emily Dickinson or pondering the meaning of the reading of the narrative of the steamy emotion of Anna Karenina while they worked; though it was very warm in the wrapping rooms. Nowadays the printed circuit board assemblers play their iPod through the earphones and solder flux their 8 hour workshift away in clean areas maintained at cool sweater-wearing temperature. Maybe the iPod instead of poetry is playing a reading of LeCarre..