{"id":7452,"date":"2006-05-19T09:11:19","date_gmt":"2006-05-19T13:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7452"},"modified":"2006-05-19T09:11:19","modified_gmt":"2006-05-19T13:11:19","slug":"hayden-hews-hearings-by-hiding-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/hayden-hews-hearings-by-hiding-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Hayden hews hearings by hiding news"},"content":{"rendered":"

[tag]Michael Hayden[\/tag]’s confirmation [tag]hearing[\/tag]s to become the director head of the CIA are the political story of the day — but there’s just not much to say about it. As Knight Ridder’s Daniel Rubin put it<\/a>, “If the job of [tag]CIA[\/tag] director requires the ability to answer hours of sharp questions and not actually say much, [tag]Hayden[\/tag] passed a critical test.”<\/p>\n

It was mildly interesting that Hayden subtly criticized<\/a> the Bush administration’s approach to pre-war Iraqi intelligence, and it was a little unusual to hear Hayden dismiss the Porter Goss years<\/a> at the CIA as “amateur hour” and blast Doug Feith<\/a>, but on the whole, Hayden’s hearings hid the good stuff<\/a> for the closed-door Q&A that the public couldn’t see.<\/p>\n

Is the NSA eavesdropping program that President Bush confirmed the entire program? “I’m not at liberty to talk about that in open session,” Hayden said.<\/p>\n

Can detainees be held in secret for decades? “Let me give it to you in the closed session.”<\/p>\n

Is “waterboarding” an acceptable interrogation technique? “Again, let me defer that to closed session.”<\/p>\n

What does he think of forecasts that Iran is years away from nuclear capability? “I would be happy to give additional detail in closed session.”<\/p>\n

Sen. [tag]Orrin Hatch[\/tag] (R-Utah) posed as Hayden’s lawyer. “Sounds to me like you’ve made a real effort to try and help members of Congress to be aware of what was going on,” he told Hayden.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Intelligence Committee Chairman [tag]Pat Roberts[\/tag] (R-Kan.) announced, “I can say without hesitation, I believe that the NSA terrorist surveillance program is legal, it is necessary, and without it the American people would be less safe.” He then congratulated himself, telling committee Dems, “I asked very tough questions.”<\/p>\n

When Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) had the nerve to tell Hayden, “The Congress was never really consulted or informed in a manner that we could truly perform our oversight role as co-equal branches of government,” Hatch “fiddled with his BlackBerry,” while Roberts “opened his cellphone.”<\/p>\n

The hearings were a chance for Hayden to largely repeat insights we’ve already heard, for Republicans to put softballs on a carefully-placed tee, and for Dems to ask reasonable questions<\/a> that Hayden wouldn’t respond to publicly.<\/p>\n

The NYT noted<\/a> that “it seems certain that General Hayden will be confirmed.” If Bush had simply replaced the [tag]Republican[\/tag] [tag]Congress[\/tag] with a [tag]rubber stamp[\/tag] six years ago, the government would at least be more efficient. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[tag]Michael Hayden[\/tag]’s confirmation [tag]hearing[\/tag]s to become the director head of the CIA are the political story of the day — but there’s just not much to say about it. As Knight Ridder’s Daniel Rubin put it, “If the job of [tag]CIA[\/tag] director requires the ability to answer hours of sharp questions and not actually say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}