Intelligence

I'm beginning to think the most dangerous man in America, for the moment, is U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS).

He's the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman, the man between the unprecedented Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bush manipulation of intellence to obscure the truth to the American public about this horrific War in Iraq and sunlight.

I guess the vampires must be scared.

Pat's just trying to close down any investigation. He appears to have the power to do so unilaterally. This is what Harry Reid led the Democrats on forcing the closed door Rule XXI session back in November and got Roberts to at least promise to pick up the ball again.

The big question is whether Roberts can hold off all the nightmare revelations and re-revelations before this upcoming November, which will likely be the fiercest mid-term election in the history of U.S. politics.

Is this where I'm supposed to write, bring it on, bitch!?

Not me, babe. I take nothing for granted anymore.
It's going to be very, very tight in November. There may be a surprise attack on Iraq by our country or Israel. Think Orange to Red.

Sen. Roberts has divided the investigation into two before, like wise King Solomon in The Bible, and now he's trying for a repeat:

A report on these three areas would be made separately from the most controversial aspects of the inquiry. Left unfinished would be a report on whether public statements and testimony about Iraq by senior U.S. government officials were substantiated by available intelligence information. Roberts also would leave unfinished another report on what Democrats have called possibly illegal activity in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, formerly headed by Douglas Feith, who is believed to have played an important role in persuading the president to invade Iraq.

The committee may review statements by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

The usual suspects. Maybe Roberts can keep cutting the investigation in two, never releasing a second report instead always subdiving, ad infinitum. At a functional level, a term for someone like Roberts would be watercarrier or apparatchik but probably not co-conspirator. Unless he knows more than he's letting on, Senator Roberts merely another employee.

If Karl Rove gets indicted soon by Patrick Fitzgerald, all bets are off. I'm sure this new White House Press Secretary from Fox, Tony Snow, is hoping that will be his greatest performance, certainly set the tone for the next nine hundred-odd days to go. And the worst of it for BushCheneyCo may be an oil company class war they're practically asking for. People are, to translate for the Washington Post, pissed the hell off.

But the core of our democracy is being able to trust those government systems that are most responsible for protecting us. Whether it's reliable beef inspection or working fire departments, we need to know they work and have the ability to find out the truth of how they're operating.

Instead, the CIA is being politically purged by Bush appointee Director Porter Goss, while his fellow Stalinist Pat Roberts is trying to bring all the various and sometimes competing U.S. intelligence agencies under the hand of a single Intelligence czar, total budget control, all the levers.

Hey, I'm all for keeping secrets to protect America. I'm for not blowing CIA agent covers. Even if you're the President. But in the end, I don't care if you're Republican like Richard Clarke or bi-partisan like Joe Wilson.

I just want you to be a trained, responsible, honest professional. And I firmly believe that most of those federal employees in the so-called permanent government, like the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, are as patriotic and devoted as it gets.

But now purges?

Didn't we defeat the Soviet Union back in the 1980's?

Is someone supposed to spin this so it makes us feel safer, or are we just supposed to avert our eyes?