The Light: Hillary

UPDATE about NoQuarter Radio programming: Patsy and Sugar are going to go relax and have fun with friends tomorrow night instead of doing their radio show. So, our next radio show will be “NoQuarter’s Dollars & Sense with LD,” on Sunday night (January 4, 2009) at 8:00 p.m. ET.

View all of Uncle Jay’s videos.

And bookmark these links:

Uncle J-Mart || His home Website: Uncle Jay Explains

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Special thanks to B. for sending me the link to Uncle Jay’s YouTube.

Bless you and your family.  May your new year be filled with wonder, if not some jail time.

This episode has made my week and my month.  The totally unexpected slap-down of yesterday’s appointment was so perfectly timed that I think Blago must have some experience working with the Second City troop.

So.  Harry and PEBO want to stop this thing.  Isn’t there something somewhere in the Constitution about being innocent until proven guilty?  Isn’t Blago still the Governor until he either resigns or is removed?

Just because Bush ignored the law does not mean that Democrats have to follow his lead and continue the use of Executive Orders and the total ignoring of our rights as Americans.  Unless of course His Highness, President in Training Obama the Glorious and Magnificent so rules.

This be America people.  Blago is innocent and he is the Governor.  Harry you need to just Get Over It.

Over at Partizane, Valhalla had this to say,

Ahhhh, this is hilarious.

Harry Reid is going to take a stand now? Not on the war, not on FISA, not on the corruption in his own party, not against the criminal president with the worst approval ratings since Nixon, but now, against an appointee who, although he doesn’t sound fab to me is perfectly competent?

I’m rather doubting Blago did much of anything that most Chicago politicians have done. I used to live in Chicago (granted it was a long time ago) and the political corruption watching was mostly a mildly amusing pastime. Political patronage, even as bad as what Blago has been accused of would barely have raised eyebrows.

I’m not saying that makes it right, but it does give quite the lie to all the “Shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on!” flavoring that has been poured all over this mess.

The longer this goes on and greater Blago’s chutzpah, the more I think he has to have something on Rahm or Obama.

And NCgirl had this to remind me how perfect this appointment is.

The appointment of Burris by Blagojevich was nothing less than brilliant. I mean, how can the Dems possibly deny this AA man the opportunity to take the place of BO in the senate. Blago knows exactly what he is doing. Those that are calling him “mentally unstable” are full of crap, and they know it now. The man is a low-life for sure but a very intelligent low-life. ………

Once again I just want to publicly thank the Governor for adding to my enjoyment of this show. Bravo!

UPDATE: Reader mido has named this, “As the Hot Rod Turns” or As the Rod Turns. Thank you mido for helping make the end of my year.

Happy New Year!

Earlier, I posted about how executive pay can drain companies and destroy jobs. Today, I cannot help thinking about how our politicians have committed to funneling billions of tax dollars to some of the same executives who managed to personally enrich themselves while driving their companies (and our economy) into a ditch.

Naturally, this led me to think about one of the big “mistakes” that government officials made when crafting the Wall Street bailout plan: the failure (or refusal) to insist on accountability.

The purpose of this year’s $350 -$700 billion corporate bailout was to unfreeze credit markets by sending cash to banks so they would start lending money again.

Some bailout-fund recipients, however, chose to use the money for purposes other than generating loans. (NY Times)  At the end of October, the Associated Press reported:

“[R]eports surfaced that bankers might instead use the [bailout] money to buy other banks, pay dividends, give employees a raise and executives a bonus, or just sit on it.” (AP)

Apparently, companies that received bailout funds were legally allowed to not use those funds to help our nation’s economy by unfreezing credit markets.

Why? Because Congress and the Bush Administration (which includes Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson) either failed or refused to legally require companies that get bailout funds to actually use the money to generate loans.

Setting such a requirement would have been easy: some sentences drafted by staff lawyers at Treasury or Congress were all that was required.

Can we chalk up the bill-drafting failures to human haste or tiredness? Were our government officials simply naive? I doubt it.

Mr. Paulson was CEO of Goldman Sachs before becoming Treasury Secretary in 2006.  He is savvy and knows how the folks running the banking firms operate.

Some representatives in Congress might not be the sharpest tools, but they have access to staff lawyers (as do Mr. Paulson and other Bush Administration officials). 

Basic principle: if you give a guy money and don’t contractually require him to spend it in certain ways, then he is not required to spend the money in certain ways.  Period.  End of story.  First-year law students understand this principle.

I suspect that officials in Congress and the Bush Administration — including Mr. Paulson — also understand the principle.

The big question: why didn’t they insert into the bailout bill some sentences requiring bailout-fund recipients to spend our tax dollars on generating loans and unfreezing credit markets?

The bailout plan started as a roughly 3-page Treasury Department proposal.  If memory serves me, the first House bill (which was voted down) was about 100 pages. The final bill (which was passed) was 451 pages and reportedly chock full of pork or riders.

In short, government officials were very busy adding thousands of sentences to the final bailout bill before both houses of Congress passed it.

If those officials had time and hand-strength to insert 300+ pages of stuff into the bailout bill, then they could have inserted sentences requiring companies that received bailout funds to spend that money on generating loans.

And yet, such sensible sentences are conspicuously absent from the bailout bill — just as absent as are sentences that would have ensured various forms of accountability.

If the omission of such sentences was accidental, then a whole slew of government officials and staffers should be replaced by competent people — and that’s the best-case scenario.

Does anybody remember the short story written in the late 1800s by Frank Stockton, entitled The Lady or the Tiger? If not, you can read it here. You may want to, after you are done reading this post.

There was a “semi-barbaric King” who had a strange way of conducting criminal trials. He would place the prisoners into an audience-packed arena where there were two doors.

Behind one door was a hungry tiger.

Behind the second door was a beautiful woman.

The prisoner would be forced to pick a door without knowing which of the two was behind the door he picked. If he picked the door where the tiger resided, he was considered guilty and became the tiger’s lunch in front of everybody watching in the stands. If he got lucky and picked the door that led to the beautiful woman, he was considered innocent and could go free. But he would have to marry the woman as his reward for freedom. This was not negotiable.

Now, the King had a beautiful daughter who was in love with a man who was far below her station in life. The King would have none of this, so he arrested his daughter’s lover and planned his “trial”.

Since the King knew that his daughter loved this man, he added a bit of a twist to the routine. He tossed her beloved into the arena and then told his daughter which door housed the tiger so that she could signal her beloved as to which door he should choose.

The wicked King had put his daughter into one of those “rock and hard place” positions. Her catch-22, so to speak. If she pointed to the door that held the tiger back, her beloved would be ripped to shreds. If she pointed to the door that released the beautiful woman, she would have to endure his marriage to the woman, thereby losing her lover forever.

The lover of the king’s daughter stood before the two doors in silence. Then he looked to the King’s daughter for a sign.

The story ends with the question: “Did the tiger come out of that door, or did the lady?”

The answer is left open for the reader to ponder.

Let’s fast forward to today and think about Harry Reid. He has made it very clear that if Governor Blagojevich picked anybody to replace Barack Obama in the Senate, the appointee, regardless of who it is, would not be acceptable to the Senate.

For starters, if Harry accepted an appointment from Blago, it would be an admission that he still has the full powers of the Governor of Illinois. This would not be very helpful to those who want him gone as fast as humanly possible, if not sooner.

Earlier this month, Bobby Rush had made it clear to Governor Blagojevich that an African American must be selected to replace Barack Obama in the only seat in the senate held by an African American. He said quite frankly that not appointing an African American would be a “National disgrace”. I mean it’s not like it’s a woman’s seat or anything. Then it wouldn’t matter. Just kidding. Not.

Not long after Bobby Rush made his comments, the house fell down on Blagojevich. Everybody wanted him gone. He was and is a pariah. People have lawyered-up all around in anticipation of what’s on all those tape recordings of Blagojevich and themselves or their surrogates. Furthermore, Blago is peeing all over the President-Elect’s fun. And Jesse Jackson Jr. isn’t having a great time of it either.

Let’s face it, Blagojevich is everybody’s nightmare at this very moment. The sooner somebody pulls him off with a hook, the sooner everyone can breathe at least a temporary sigh of relief. Blagojevich is not only a nightmare, but he’s a very clever nightmare, indeed.

This morning, the terribly clever Blago, much like the king in The Lady or The Tiger? showed Harry Reid two doors. He boldly appointed former Illinois DA Roland Buriss to fill Obama’s Senate slot. Burris is an African American who also ran against Blagojevich in the Gubernatorial race. To complicate things, it’s a matter of record that Barack Obama endorsed Burris in that race.

After Blago’s announcement, while Harry Reid was probably having the dry heaves in the men’s room, Bobby Rush spoke on Burris’ behalf, stating that Roland Burris is “worthy”. He also made his feelings known that to punish Buriss for what Blagojevich has done is tantamount to a “lynching”.

Now Harry Reid has two choices:

He can renege on his threat to see to it that anybody appointed by Blagojevich appointed would be blatantly rejected, thus giving credence to Blagojevich’s powers as a sitting governor at a time when the game calls for rejection of that thought. Or…… Reid can keep his promise and reject Burris.

Which door are you going to tell your cohorts in the Senate to pick, Harry? The Lady or the Tiger?

Just wondering. Heh.

Here, Harry, let me refresh your memory, even though I’m fairly certain you’ve already watched this video a minimum of 15 times today.

Want some interesting bits that have missed the front page or the “top of the hour” on news channels? Here are a few tidbits buried somewhere else.

1) In the IHT, an interesting article about the Netherlands and cultural tolerance discusses a potential change in how the Dutch hope to assimilate newcomers.

Two years ago, the Dutch could quietly congratulate themselves on having brought what seemed to be a fair measure of consensus and reason to the meanest intersection in their national political life: the one where integration of Muslim immigrants crossed Dutch identity.

Read the rest ->
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Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, the Netherlands had lived through something akin to a populist revolt against accommodating Islamic immigrants led by Pim Fortuyn, who was later murdered; the assassination of the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, accused of blasphemy by a homegrown Muslim killer; and the bitter departure from the Netherlands of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali woman who became a member of Parliament before being marked for death for her criticism of radical Islam.
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Two weeks ago, the country’s biggest left-wing political grouping, the Labor Party, which has responsibility for integration as a member of the coalition government led by the Christian Democrats, issued a position paper calling for the end of the failed model of Dutch “tolerance.”
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. . . If judged on the standard scale of caution in dealing with cultural clashes and Muslims’ obligations to their new homes in Europe, the language of the Dutch position paper and Lilianne Ploumen, Labor’s chairperson, was exceptional.

The paper said: “The mistake we can never repeat is stifling criticism of cultures and religions for reasons of tolerance.”

Government and politicians had too long failed to acknowledge the feelings of “loss and estrangement” felt by Dutch society facing parallel communities that disregard its language, laws and customs.

Newcomers, according to Ploumen, must avoid “self-designated victimization.”

She asserted, “the grip of the homeland has to disappear” for these immigrants who, news reports indicate, also retain their original nationality at a rate of about 80 percent once becoming Dutch citizens.
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And the obligations of the native Dutch? Ploumen’s answer is, “People who have their roots here have to offer space to traditions, religions and cultures which are new to Dutch society” - but without fear of expressing criticism. “Hurting feelings is allowed, and criticism of religion, too.”

Interesting. You may remember the story of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Dutch parliamentarian, who was forced to leave the Netherlands by Muslim extremists’ threats on her life. Here in the US, we’re seeing the same issues.

2) Coincidentally, the WSJ published a piece today about Samuel Huntington. Huntington, a Harvard political scientist, died last week but published many books. The most recent was “Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity.”

He wrote in that book of the “American Creed,” and of its erosion among the elites. Its key elements — the English language, Christianity, religious commitment, English concepts of the rule of law, the responsibility of rulers, and the rights of individuals — he said are derived from the “distinct Anglo-Protestant culture of the founding settlers of America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.”

Critics who branded the book as a work of undisguised nativism missed an essential point. Huntington observed that his was an “argument for the importance of Anglo-Protestant culture, not for the importance of Anglo-Protestant people.” The success of this great republic, he said, had hitherto depended on the willingness of generations of Americans to honor the creed of the founding settlers and to shed their old affinities. But that willingness was being battered by globalization and multiculturalism, and by new waves of immigrants with no deep attachments to America’s national identity. “The Stars and Stripes were at half-mast,” he wrote in “Who Are We?”, “and other flags flew higher on the flagpole of American identities.”

Three possible American futures beckoned, Huntington said: cosmopolitan, imperial and national. In the first, the world remakes America, and globalization and multiculturalism trump national identity. In the second, America remakes the world: Unchallenged by a rival superpower, America would attempt to reshape the world according to its values, taking to other shores its democratic norms and aspirations. In the third, America remains America: It resists the blandishments — and falseness — of cosmopolitanism, and reins in the imperial impulse.
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In the 1990s, when the Davos crowd and other believers in a borderless world reigned supreme, Huntington crossed over from the academy into global renown, with his “clash of civilizations” thesis. In an article first published in Foreign Affairs in 1993 (then expanded into a book), Huntington foresaw the shape of the post-Cold War world. The war of ideologies would yield to a civilizational struggle of soil and blood. It would be the West versus the eight civilizations dividing the rest — Latin American, African, Islamic, Sinic, Hindu, Orthodox, Buddhist and Japanese.

In this civilizational struggle, Islam would emerge as the principal challenge to the West. “The relations between Islam and Christianity, both orthodox and Western, have often been stormy. Each has been the other’s Other. The 20th-century conflict between liberal democracy and Marxist-Leninism is only a fleeting and superficial historical phenomenon compared to the continuing and deeply conflictual relation between Islam and Christianity.”

He had assaulted the zeitgeist of the era. The world took notice, and his book was translated into 39 languages. Critics insisted that men want Sony, not soil. But on 9/11, young Arabs — 19 of them — would weigh in. They punctured the illusions of an era, and gave evidence of the truth of Huntington’s vision. With his typical precision, he had written of a “youth bulge” unsettling Muslim societies, and young, radicalized Arabs, unhinged by modernity and unable to master it, emerging as the children of this radical age.

Now I need to add THIS book to the pile.

3) Now he tells us. Apparently, Jesse, Sr also believes that it took LBJ to help achieve civil rights. In the Chicago Sun-Times, Jackson, writing of the coming bad times for the poor, notes LBJ’s war on poverty.

When Barack Obama takes office, he will usher in the greatest period of reform in America since Lyndon Johnson in 1965-66. In a few extraordinary months, Johnson pushed through the Voting Rights Act, immigration reform and Medicare, and launched the War on Poverty. That effort was an early casualty of the war in Vietnam, but by the end of Johnson’s presidency poverty had been dramatically reduced.

Yet Johnson is seldom invoked as a great president. In part that is because his administration was itself a casualty of the Vietnam War. In part that is because his reforms sparked a reaction, with conservatives running against affirmative action, crime and welfare, profiting from the race-baiting politics of division.
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[Obama] will come with a mandate to get the economy moving, to put people back to work. And across the country, the weakest and most vulnerable Americans will be hoping that he takes up LBJ’s war on poverty, and King’s poor people’s campaign.

In case you’ve forgotten (I haven’t), Hillary got absolutely slammed earlier this year for suggesting that Johnson was pivotal in the civil rights movement. Ted Kennedy was apparently so angry he decided, then and there, to endorse Obama, according to WaPo.

Sources say Kennedy was privately furious at Clinton for her praise of President Lyndon Baines Johnson for getting the 1964 Civil Rights Act accomplished. Jealously guarding the legacy of the Kennedy family dynasty, Senator Kennedy felt Clinton’s LBJ comments were an implicit slight of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, who first proposed the landmark civil rights initiative in a famous televised civil rights address in June 1963.
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Kennedy was also apparently upset that Clinton said on the same day: “Dr. [Martin Luther] King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Ac. It took a president to get it done.”

Both comments that day, by Clinton and her supporter, were meant to make the point that Clinton would be better equipped to get things done as president than Obama, her chief Democratic rival. Sources say Clinton called Kennedy to apologize for the LBJ comments. But whatever she said clearly wasn’t enough to assuage Kennedy, who endorsed Obama earlier this week.

Of no consideration, whatsoever, was the information found at MediaMatters, that Clinton had been misquoted.

A Washington Times article misrepresented Sen. Hillary Clinton’s January 7 statement on civil rights — which it claimed “seemed to diminish the accomplishments of Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement — by reporting that she said: “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.” But Clinton actually said: “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done.”

Don’t forget. In politics, truth is optional. And the biggest dust-up may be later quietly repudiated completely.

4) From the “How YOUR Campaign Contributions are Used” department - Charlie Rangel pays parking tickets with campaign funds, from cqpolitics.com.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel of New York has used campaign funds to pay $1,540 in fines from parking tickets in the District of Columbia in the last two years, according to federal campaign finance records and his office.

Rangel’s campaign committee and his “leadership” political action committee have combined to make 14 separate payments to the D.C. treasurer for “automobile expenses” since March 16, 2007, and a Rangel spokesman confirmed that campaign aides believe they were for tickets.
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Regardless of any potential legal issues, the congressman is paying parking tickets with other people’s money.

The [parking] fines are the latest in a series of revelations about the Ways and Means chairman’s activities that could cause him ethical, political and public relations headaches.
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The House ethics committee is already investigating allegations regarding Rangel’s four rent-controlled apartments in New York, failure to pay taxes on rental income from property in the Caribbean, and the use of official letterhead to woo donations to a public policy school named for him.

And Rangel’s recently ticketed PT Cruiser is just one of at least three of the congressman’s vehicles to attract attention. Rangel had a car towed from the House garage earlier this year after the New York Post reported that he had been storing the undriveable 1972 Mercedes sedan there for several years in violation of House rules.

The same paper reported in September that Rangel was using a Cadillac DeVille leased by his taxpayer-funded House office — at $778 per month — to travel to campaign events in New York in violation of House rules.

The use of campaign donations to pay for parking violations in the District of Columbia — far from Rangel’s Harlem-based district — raises questions of whether or not all of his contributors feel their money is being spent properly.

Well, yeah. And while paying a few parking tickets seems a small thing, that’s not, after all, the point. Should Rangel use donations to pay for his parking violations? And why can’t this guy just follow the rules?

VIDEOS are listed chronologically. These latest videos are only three hours old:

US military aid underpins Gaza offensive - 31 Dec 08

Israel receives billions of dollars in military aid from the US each year, much of it spent on American weaponry which US law says must only be used in self-defence.

But experts say there is little chance of cuts in aid to Israel despite its military operation in Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s Nick Spicer reports.

MOBILE BULLETIN 0035GMT 31 Dec 08

Sderot residents live on the edge 30 Dec 08

Israel insists that as long as Hamas rockets keep falling on the southern part of the country, it must continue striking Gaza.

And as Hoda Abdel Hamid reports, residents in Sderot - which lies near the Gaza border - say they support those attacks, even if it means taking civilian lives.

Nowhere to run for those trapped in Gaza - 30 Dec 08

Palestinian families are wondering whether they will become the next target after four days of Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip.

As Sherine Tadros reports, there are few places to hide, and civilian casualties continue to rise.

(bumped up by SusanUnPC)

I do not deny any country the right to defend itself against unprovoked attacks. So understand at the outset that I do not condemn Israel for going after those in Gaza who are firing crude rockets/mortars. But Israel and the media need to stop the gross exaggeration and distortion. Whatever the weapon system Hamas is firing it is not very accurate and not very lethal. Just compare the Israeli death tolls from these strikes with those of the Palestinian’s in Gaza. Less than ten Israelis dead and more than 370 Palestinians.

If you are younger than 50 years old you probably do not remember a time when Israel did not have the guaranteed support of the United States. It was in 1967 that Israel was the underdog. Israel had its back to the wall and was surrounded by Arab armies that, on paper at least, appeared to be stronger and more dangerous. But Israel started turning the tide and by the time of Ronald Reagan had become the darling of Republicans and Democrats alike.

Unfortunately, at the very time that Israel was becoming a solid ally of the United States it stopped being the humble David fighting the Arab Goliaths and transformed itself into the de facto military superpower of the Middle East. Most of my friends in the intelligence community, the military, and law enforcement agree on one word that best describes what Israel has become–arrogant.

A friend of mine who was on the FBI’s Hostage Rescue team recounted his experience while providing security for General Tony Zinni, who was on a peace mission to Israel and Palestine during the Clinton Administration. I asked him about the quality of Palestinian security personnel he met and was shocked by his answer. He described the Palestinians as far more professional than the Israelis–they were well groomed, neat uniforms, handled weapons carefully, and showed respect for their chain of command. The Israelis security personnel, in contrast, were arrogant and sloppy.

Or how about the Israeli pilots who were with a U.S. intelligence officer in an Arab country. Instead of maintaining a low profile they waved their Israeli passports around, tried to spend shekels, and can very close to getting whacked by the security forces in that country.

And the 2006 invasion of Lebanon? Israel apparently thought it only had to show up on the battlefield and victory was assured. Pure arrogance and Israel paid a tough price for its foolishness.

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, as Zionists among the Jewish survivors struggled to create the state of Israel, it was understandable that there was bitterness and hatred. Some Zionists turned to terrorism. The Irgun and the Stern gang are the prime culprits. Most of the world managed to overlook the fact that the former Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, was the head of the Irgun, which bombed the King David Hotel. Begin did to the Brits what Hamas is doing to Israel, with one big difference–the Irgun was more lethal on a per capita incident basis. In the King David Hotel bombing Irgun killed 91 people. Hamas, by contrast, has fired hundreds of rockets and mortars and has not killed a tenth of the people compared to the Irgun attack in 1946.

So what is the lesson? The small number of Jews who escaped the Warsaw ghetto, fought the Nazis, and fled to Palestine certainly believed that their survival justified any act. I understand that point of view and can empathize. But the Palestinian people imprisoned in Gaza can make an interesting claim that they too have been herded into a confined geographical space and are surrounded by a hostile force. If you take time to watch the BBC you are likely to see more images of Palestinian civilians, particularly children, being killed by Israeli bombs.

Here we have the ultimate irony–Israel was born in the ashes and horror of the Holocaust and now, using the justification of national survival, employs some of the same techniques and methods that were used against their women and children in places like Warsaw and Lidice.

I would be more sympathetic to Israel’s cause right now if the leadership exhibited some measure of human compassion for what they are doing to the Palestinians. But that compassion and mercy is sorely lacking. I will state it again (though I realize that for the die hard Israel fanatics it falls on deaf ears and blind eyes)–Hamas is not justified in firing anything–bullets or rockets–into Israel. But Israel’s response to these incidents is not eliminating the cause, it is simply hardening the resolve of the Palestinians to destroy those who they see destroying their families. This is tribal vengeance at its worst and will be difficult to quell.

My wish for the new year is that Israel forgets about being a bully, loses some of its swagger, and recovers the humanity and compassion that once made Israel special.

Melvin A. Goodman, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, is a former intelligence analyst at the CIA (1966-1990) and the author of Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA. Mr. Goodman is a longtime friend of Larry Johnson’s and gave his express consent to reprint this article, originally published at Public Record.

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During his campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama spoke out against the militarization and politicization of the intelligence community and indicated that an Obama administration would address the intelligence abuses of the past decade. Unfortunately, his maneuvers over the past several weeks strongly suggest that business as usual will dominate the president-elect’s intelligence policy.

Even before the election, Obama had appointed an intelligence advisory staff that was headed by former associates of George Tenet, whose failed stewardship of CIA was dominated by the cover-up of intelligence failures before 9/11; corruption in the run-up to the Iraq War; and the CIA’s programs of rendition and detainee abuse at Agency secret prisons. Tenet’s deputy, John McLaughlin, who supported these policies, was part of Obama’s advisory group.

Immediately after the election, Obama appointed one of Tenet’s protégés, John Brennan, to head his transition team at CIA. Brennan, as Tenet’s chief of staff, was part of the corruption and cover-up at CIA. Brennan was slated to become Obama’s director of CIA, but he removed his name from consideration when it became clear that he would have serious difficulty in the confirmation process because of his support for CIA’s policies. The deputy chairman of the transition team, Jamie Miscik, also a Tenet protégé, was director of CIA’s analytic directorate in the disastrous period before the Gulf War. Both Brennan and Miscik have an interest in continuing the cover-up of Agency failures begun by Tenet after 9/11 and continued by Porter Goss and Michael Hayden.

Nearly two months after the election, Obama has failed to name either a new director of national intelligence or a new CIA director. Informed sources are now pointing to the retention of retired general Michael Hayden at CIA and the naming of retired admiral Dennis Blair as intelligence tsar. Although Obama voted against the confirmation of Hayden in May 2006, the Obama team is indicating that Hayden has done an acceptable job at CIA and that Admiral Blair is a good replacement for the retired admiral, Michael McConnell, who is currently director of national intelligence. The retention of Hayden, the naming of Blair, along with the selection of retired marine general James Jones as national security adviser, indicates that Pentagon players will continue to occupy important posts in the national security process and that the de-emphasis of civilian control of the foreign policy process that the Bush administration began eight years ago will continue.

The retention of Hayden would be particularly disheartening from a campaigner who promised “change you can believe in.” Hayden entered the CIA in 2006 under a cloud, because as the director of the National Security Agency he approved the warrantless eavesdropping program that began after the 9/11 attacks. The program violated the FISA Act of 1978 and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution that prohibits unlawful seizures and searches. At the National Press Club in January 2006, Hayden’s defense of warrantless eavesdropping revealed a stunning lack of understanding of the Fourth Amendment, as he asserted that the amendment did not stipulate the importance of “probable cause,” which of course it does. Hayden conceded that he relied on advice from White House lawyers and never considered consulting the legal staff of NSA, which recognized the illegality of the program. Obama, a constitutional lawyer, voted against Hayden’s confirmation for that reason.

Hayden initially charmed senior managers at the CIA by telling them behind closed doors soon after confirmation that “amateur hour” at the CIA was over, a thinly veiled reference to the corrupt and partisan leadership of his immediate predecessor, former congressman Porter Goss. Hayden revealed his own partisan colors a year later, however, when he began an unprecedented investigation of the Office of the Inspector General, which had been critical of the CIA’s renditions and interrogations programs. Whereas Goss targeted and fired an IG officer, Mary McCarthy, who was working on renditions issues, Hayden targeted the IG himself, John Helgerson, who had recommended the creation of “accountability boards” for intelligence officers involved in 9/11 intelligence failures, torture and abuse, and illegal renditions.

Hayden then named John Rizzo as CIA’s general counsel; Rizzo had been the CIA’s leading lawyer in pursuing legal justification for torture and abuse of terrorist suspects, and the policy of extraordinary renditions. Fortunately, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, blocked the confirmation of Rizzo, who withdrew his nomination in September 2007. Nonetheless, Rizzo continues to serve as CIA’s acting general counsel. Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-MI, has tried to investigate another CIA cover-up under Hayden’s tenure—CIA involvement in the shooting down of a missionary plane in Peru in 2001, but he is receiving no support from his Democratic colleagues.

Thus far, Obama has provided no indication that he is serious about addressing the problems of militarization of the intelligence community and politicization and cover-up at the Central Intelligence Agency. As a result, when Hillary Clinton takes the reins of the State Department, she will soon find that she is up against a military establishment that is opposed to arms control and disarmament; that favors creation of a national missile defense at home and in Eastern Europe; and that supports additional and highly risky expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. When the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon pursued arms control policies, they counted on the intelligence community to stand up to the opposition and worst case assessments of the Pentagon regarding disarmament. Obama should be seeking similar support for his own policies.

After campaigning on “change you can believe in,” Obama is indicating that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” He has demonstrated his confidence in his own vision and in his ability to forge consensus among those whose views differ from his own. He is underestimating, however, the power of culture and vested interest. He would serve himself well to select as CIA director an outsider, perhaps a senior foreign service officer such as Richard Holbrooke or Thomas Pickering, untainted by CIA’s recent policies and not vested in covering up Agency corruption.

Nocturnal Warrior is busy with all of his relatives in town (and that’s either heaven or hell, depending on your relatives). But he’s a very busy man this week, so decided to take the night off.

What else is goin’ on?

I don’t know what it is about golfing… There are some images that remain forever in our memories, and for me, two of those include golfing. Now, we unfortunately, have a third.

The first one, OJ Simpson on the golf course, after he was acquitted for the deaths of Nicole and Ron. Interviewed by the press, OJ said he would not rest until he found the real killer…and then went on to play golf.

O.J. Simpson golfs in Florida
October 18, 1995

PANAMA CITY, Florida (CNN) — O.J. Simpson has been seen in public for a second straight day at a golf course in Panama City, Florida. He signed autographs and chatted briefly with reporters before teeing off.

Simpson said he did not know how long he would be in the Gulf Coast city. His girlfriend, Paula Barbieri, has been staying with her mother there. Simpson laughed off a reporter’s query as to whether the two got married (61K AIFF sound or 61K WAV sound).

Two weeks ago, Simpson was acquitted on charges of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. He had not been seen in public before Tuesday.

The second unfortunate golfing incident is the clip of George Bush from Fahrenheit 9/11:

“I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now, watch this drive.” ~ George W. Bush

And now, today, we have this one:

Shhhh! As the world waits for Obama to voice his opinion on Gaza, America’s President-in-waiting hits the golf course
Mail Online
30th December 2008

Barack Obama remained silent over the violence in Gaza as Israel today threatened to continue its attacks for weeks. Instead the President-elect is continuing his 12-day Christmas holiday in Hawaii and was seen enjoying a round of golf. He joined a group of friends at a private club near his $9million rented, beach-front holiday home in Hawaii yesterday.

Shh: Mr Obama, who is staying silent on the Israeli attacks, asks the crowd to be quiet as he finishes his putt

Meanwhile, 9,000 miles away in the Middle East, Israel rejected any truce with Hamas today and said it was ready for ‘long weeks of action’ in the Gaza Strip. Observers said that at least 10 people were killed and another 40 injured as up to 16 bombs were dropped by Israeli warplanes during early morning attacks. The targets included the offices of Hamas prime minister Ismael Haniyeh, police stations and Gaza’s treasury and foreign ministry buildings. Continue here.

What is it with men, the golf course and bad media moments?