Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Does George Tenet have a truthiness problem?
Michael Ledeen, one of the many targets of George Tenet's new book, is understandably harsh in return:
On at least one occasion, Tenet conjures an event out of thin air. He says that on 9/12, he ran into Richard Perle coming out of the White House. According to Tenet, Perle said to him: “Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility.” Nicely crafted, but wrong again. Unluckily for Tenet, Perle was in France that day.
This is our CIA at work, and unfortunately it’s what we’ve come to expect: the same organization that has been justly excoriated by commission after commission for its lack of understanding of the threat against the United States. Tenet reached his conclusions, and launched a bureaucratic tantrum...
There's a lot more where that came from.
UPDATE: Regular commenter DEC gives us this link to Christopher Hitchens' scorching piece in Slate. I suspect I'm the last righty blogger in America to link it, but better late than never!
8 Comments:
By 
D.E. Cloutier, at
Tue May 01, 02:18:00 AM:
I like the Christopher Hitchens piece at Slate:
"A Loser's History
"George Tenet's sniveling, self-justifying new book is a disgrace."
http://slate.com/id/2165269
By Cardinalpark, at
Tue May 01, 10:32:00 AM:
Doesn't it rankle that the former head of our spy agency wrote a book about his tenure? Is that not absurd on its face?
Chutzpah is the best I can say for it. Here's the guy who was running the only organization which could have had any legitimate shot at detecting the threat from abroad. They failed. He failed. And does he do the honorable thing? Fall on his sword? No. Instead, he is given a lease on life -- which was a horrible mistake. Continues to do a rotten job. Is finally fired. And the writes a book. As a spy?
What's words can describe how dishonorable and incompetent a character George Tenet is. What an embarrassment. He should be loathed. And the loathing should be bipartisn it seems to me. He hurt us all.
By Purple Avenger, at
Tue May 01, 11:41:00 AM:
I bet Dan Rather was the ghostwriter.
By Fire, at
Tue May 01, 12:08:00 PM:
Purple Avenger: ROFL!
Indeed.
I would also say that it's interesting that Tenet had to pander not only to CBS, but not willing to be left out of the loop, Charles Gibson interviewed him the very next day, or at least it was aired the next day.
Tenet is a quack, and even the CIA execs are telling him to donate his proceeds to the victims of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Absurd is right.
By Doug, at
Tue May 01, 08:45:00 PM:
The Medal Don't Fit,
George Left in a Snit.
By Georg Felis, at
Wed May 02, 01:29:00 PM:
Getting serious for just a minute here, Tenent would have *had* to submitted this book to review by the CIA before publication. Somewhere, someplace, deep within that organization is a step by step Fisking of every misstatement, screw-up or downright lie in the book. If he were a Republican, this document would be made public the day before the book goes on sale. Since he is a Dem, I’m afraid the Blog-o-sphere will have to pick up the slack. Fortunately that should be doable, we have quite a collection of talent out here. Any volunteers?
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu May 03, 11:16:00 PM:
Gotta admit, you lost me there, Georg.
By Georg Felis, at
Thu May 10, 10:37:00 AM:
He’s a former CIA employee. Anything he writes for publication has to be approved by the CIA for National Security reasons. Therefore, somebody in the CIA has already read the book and examined it piece by piece to make sure it does not reveal any “Methods or Sources”. After examining the book, this person or persons would then have to approve the publication, in writing, most probably with a report attached to the approval form.
This is the procedure that all current and former CIA employees have to go through. It’s a little rougher for the Conservatives than the Liberals, or the Ms. (Blame) Phlame book would have never been approved for publication. Yes, the approval process is a joke, but if some anonymous CIA employee was upset that their idiot chief was getting such glowing reviews from the press about his multi-year bipartisan screwup term, this report might, just might, get posted somewhere.
If so, you can expect a *lot* of heat to be directed at the CIA, far more than when the Times reveals top-secret anti-Bush info on their front page. (Bias? What bias?)
