Michael Leiter Resigns, Undermining Claimed Rationale for Mueller Extension

/in /by

National Counterterrorism Center head Michael Leiter resigned yesterday.

I’m agnostic about whether that’s a good thing or not. NCTC got most of the blame for missing the UndieBomber, which Leiter exacerbated by going off on a ski vacation just after the attempted attack. But Leiter supposedly made some improvements at NCTC.

But I am rather curious about the timing (along with the trial balloons about Hillary and the World Bank, though State has aggressively denied them).

After all, we spent most of Wednesday morning, during Robert Mueller’s confirmation hearing for an unusual two-year extension, talking about the importance of continuity. Mueller has to stick around not solving the anthrax case and not investigating Lloyd Blankfein for two more years, it was explained, because the current CIA Director is about to become Secretary of Defense, after which a current top General will become CIA Director. The justification for Mueller’s extension was that we need continuity at a time of great change, particularly in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s death and the lead-up to the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Now, granted, NCTC head isn’t as senior a position as CIA or FBI Director. But it is, obviously, right in the thick of our preparations for the 9/11 anniversary.

So, uh, were all the stated concerns about continuity just a ruse?

 

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  3. orionATL says:

    well, if you did not reappoint mueller, then you’d have to go out and find a candidate, wouldn’t you.

    and if you did that, you’d have to worry about who could get confirmed because your admin has so little clout in the congress.

    could it be we have a very weak president?

    a wizard-of-oz president with naught but a deep voice who hides behind persecutions of thomas tamm julian assange, and american muslims, continuation of a predecessors’ middle-asian wars, “meeting half way” with economic know-nothings bent on destroying a weak economic recovery, and a fake medical care cost reduction act.

    is buttercup obama ever going to take on a really tough target?

  4. nomolos says:

    along with the trial balloons about Hillary and the World Bank

    Kee-ryst. Those clintons sure can sniff the money.

    As for shuffling the deck chairs on the good ship Zero, they are going to hit the bloody iceberg no matter what.

  5. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Mr. Mueller’s sort of continuity we could do without. Like a good army, good government requires a depth of talent. That is, having a lot of people ready, willing, able and trained to step up to the next level of command out of necessity or merit. We ought not to encourage the meme that a small elite are indispensable. The meme is good for the elite, but it harms government, corporations, corporate and charitable boards, local government, you name it.

    Every corporation in bankruptcy argues that it desperately needs to retain the executives who managed it into bankruptcy. That’s because the people who led the company into bankruptcy want to keep running, adn they run the bankruptcy. Often, the opposite is true. Government does not need to keep all of its top people. It would be aided by their replacement, and more so by reinvigorating the process and expectation that they routinely be replaced.

  7. spidermonkey says:

    Mueller’s continued assigment as FBI Director is even more important if Leiter resigns. Are you somehow assuming this was some sort of forced resignation? Otherwise, your line of reasoning doesn’t make sense.

  8. JTMinIA says:

    Since it looks like I’ll be completely wrong as to how the public will be told to think about the failed prosecution of Drake, I will put this in the form of a question, instead of assertion. Sorry about it being a little OT, but the issue did arise in the original post.

    Is Hilary Clinton looking to get out of the Obama Administration but into an equally-high-profile job because she’s no longer thinking of waiting until 2016 before she runs for presnit again?

  9. cougar says:

    Ruse, and a good one, punctuated with a impeccably choreographed announcement of the resignation of the
    director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

    Loosing continuity, big time, booga-booga!!