Today: Colin Powell. Also William Safire, from a position in the other camp. And then there are people being let go from the CIA for being “disloyal.”
Let me make this clear. I, unlike the administration, believe in science. I believe in “prove it to me.” I believe that even in murky situations like interpreting intelligence reports—especially in those situations—how you proceed should be about whose interpretation best fits reality, not whether the analyst is a “soft leaker,” “liberal Democrat,” or a person who has been “obstructing the president’s agenda.”
This makes the disturbing New Yorker article about how selected intelligence reports that fit the Administration’s rosy scenario were fasttracked to the President, while less rosy reports were suppressed, look like child’s play.
Let’s not even get into appointing Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor during the worst failures of national security in history, to the State Department. She failed, folks. She tried to tell the nation, and the 9/11 commission, and did tell the president, that an August 2001 memo entitled “Al Qaeda determined to strike in America” meant no imminent danger to the country. She should be fired, she should be brought down, not rewarded. But then I said I wasn’t going to get into this.