#1
Obama has created a scandal where one did not need to exist, for reasons I cannot fathom. Picking a fight with the IC is a very bad idea, as anybody acquainted with how Washington, DC, works is well aware. When “thrown under the bus” by any White House, the spooks retaliate with leaks that are often highly damaging to the administration; this is a venerable game inside the Beltway that wise politicians avoid as a lose-lose situation. This about turf, not ideology: ask George W. Bush what happened to his plans for war with Iran once the IC, led by CIA, put out its dovish 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Tehran’s nuclear program, escorted by a barrage of anti-White House leaks.
The IC is a behemoth of seventeen different — and sometimes mutually hostile — agencies residing in six different cabinet departments. Turf issues matter, and the addition of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI — that’s Clapper) in the aftermath of 9/11 has added another layer of bureaucracy rather than fix fundamental problems with the American intelligence model, some of which are caused by its gargantuan size rather than mismanagement. There was debate inside the IC about the rise of ISIL, and Obama’s opening the IC’s performance on this issue to public scrutiny on national television means that we have to get to the bottom of this.
#4
due to his pathological narcissism, he is incapable of admitting fault
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/01/2014 14:52 Comments ||
Top||
#5
KBK, what did W do to tick off the Intelligence Community? Posted by rjschwarz
The pretentious Klingon elites saw 'W' as a crude, Texas hick who already had the skinny on them from his father [who had been the DCI]. The Texas hick part can be debated, but there's no doubt he had the scoop on the Klingon hierarchy. Tenet and his deputy Jim Pavitt both resigned in 2004. Pavitt, the day after Tenet. Some within the community saw this as a 'W' post-9/11 house cleaning. If it was, it was long overdue.
#4
Which all means its up to the 9 Princes* of the Realm.
* as in unelected and unaccountable by the people and only subject to influence by the oligarchs of their faction (cause the written word means nothing to them).
#5
The Supremes do not have the collective courage to completely overturn a major bill like this, no matter how clear the case is.
Besides, I really think Obama has something on Roberts to keep him in line.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
10/01/2014 10:55 Comments ||
Top||
#6
The Supremes have had a few reasonable rulings lately. However, they certainly missed the boat when Roberts came up with the contorted opinion that the penalty for not signing up for O-Care was indeed a tax instead of a penalty. Even the Donks didn't interpret it that way when they wrote this odious piece of crap.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
