republican purges

CIA.  According to Newsday, no bastion of liberalism:

The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House," said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."

The republican party.  According to The State, via Kos:

"There is no future for moderate and progressive Republicans in the Republican Party," said Jim Scarantino, president of the centrist GOP group Mainstream 2004. "The far right wing and the fanatics have seized control."

Scarantino isn't sure where his brand of Republican politics fits into the GOP. Some Christian conservatives say it doesn't.

"If they can't agree and support the president and the platform, then they ought to go over to the Democrats," said Jan LaRue, chief counsel for the conservative group Concerned Women for America.[...]

After laboring behind the scenes for years, conservatives are front and center. And they want the president to move quickly to address their agenda. The to-do list includes defending traditional marriage, banning human cloning, reforming Social Security, passing more restrictive abortion laws and stepping up enforcement of obscenity laws, said LaRue of Concerned Women for America.

And if moderates don't agree with those objectives, perhaps they don't belong in the GOP, she said.

LaRue calls [Senator Arlen] Specter a RINO - Republican In Name Only - and questions why politicians such as Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island remain in the Republican Party when they didn't even vote for Bush.

The state department.  Here's the NYTimes:

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announced his resignation on Monday, and administration officials said his successor would be Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser and closest confidante in shaping one of the most assertive American foreign policies in recent history.

Republicans said that as secretary of state Ms. Rice would continue to promote the views of the president rather than her own. But in a relationship as close as that of Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice - she spends most weekends with the Bushes at Camp David - the reality is that their lengthy private talks have served as an incubator for the administration's foreign policy. Ms. Rice, who was a tutor to the little-traveled Mr. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign, said in an interview late last year that Mr. Bush now influenced her as much as she influenced him.

"I don't talk the president into almost anything, all right?" Ms. Rice said in the interview. "I just want that understood. You can't do that with the president. What you can do with the president is make your arguments."

I hope you noticed what I highlighted in each of those news stories.  All three stories involve purging elements that are not loyal to the president. Instead of getting dissent from Powell, he'll get obedience from Rice.  Instead of diversity, the party wants line-toeing from its rank and file.  Instead of intelligent intelligence analysis, they want someone who's on board with the president's agenda.

OK.  My republican friends, you're accomplishing your goals; and in the meantime, you're confirming everything that those of us that are sane are afraid of about you.  You run on these bizarre issues; "moral values" and "strong leader," and then your "re"-elected president claims a mandate with 51%, and tries to restructure the federal government to his liking.  Loyalty is in.  Discussion is out.  This is isn't one party rule; this one wing of one party rule.  The rule of the Bush faction. 

I can't think of a more dangerous thing for the country. 

-- Michael

Comments

[drm]

IT IS ABOUT TIME. Let's not forget that the one group of people that has been most responsible for the failures with regards to terrorism over the past 12 years has been the CIA. Honestly, the entire agency should have been purged after 9/11.

They are not being purged for being disloyal to the President they are being purged for being incompetent. The CIA works for the President and the amount of leaking coming from the CIA over the last few months is unconsciousable. You cannot have employees that are actively working to undermine you.

The CIA has forgotten that its sole purpose is to provide intelligence and to prevent 9/11 style attacks. IT IS NOT A POLICY DEPARTMENT.

Even the liberals favorite Republican, John McCain, called them a rogue agency on This Week this past sunday.

With all do respect, your quoting of The State via Kos makes no sence with regards to the CIA. The CIA FAILED. They are not a policy department so what the hell does it matter what the Concerned Woman of America have to say with regards to gay marraige when discussing the purging at the CIA.

The CIA is not republican or democrat, they exist to SERVE THE PRESIDENT. And to keep their MOUTHS SHUT.

"Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."

I SAY GOOD. I will say it again, the CIA DOES NOT MAKE POLICY. They do not exist to obstruct the president, any president. They exist to provide the president quality intelligence and during the Clinton and Bush administrations THEY HAVE BEEN ABJECT FAILURES.

It's about time that heads are rolling. Why this was not done after 9/11 I have no idea.

" Instead of intelligent intelligence analysis, they want someone who's on board with the president's agenda." WHAT B/S. Was 9/11 intelligent intelligence analysis? Since when does the CIA go off and start leaking like a $2 faucet to undermine the President, who they work for?

McCain, for once, had it right. The CIA is a rogue agency.

Let's not forget that the President is the executive and agencies are supposed to support his policies. What you need to understand that dissent is fine, but actively working to undermine the President is never OK. In my opinion the President has no problem with listening to dissent, what he has no tollerance is people that are supposed to be implementing his policies that actively work against him.

[scardanelli]

DRM,
I take your point that the CIA showed its failures after 9/11. CIA reform is necessary, absolutely. But I think you misunderstand Michael's point. He's not saying that the CIA should be protected from any reform; he's saying that the current Bush-Goss reform is politically motivated and therefore will not fix the real problem.

You say: "They are not being purged for being disloyal to the President they are being purged for being incompetent. The CIA works for the President and the amount of leaking coming from the CIA over the last few months is unconsciousable."

It seems to me that you are confusing the leak issue with the 9/11 intelligence failure issue, which really have little to do with each other.

You seem to think that the agency's duty is to provide the President whatever intelligence he needs to bolster his own agenda, NO MATTER WHAT THE ACTUAL FACTS MAY BE. And that's why this "reform" is very dangerous.

Intelligence must be a non-partisan matter, as you rightly point out. But, how can an agency be non-partisan if you insist that it must serve the President? How can it be non-partisan if you place loyalty to the President's agenda above the professional task of providing good intelligence? Surely you must admit that for any administration, Republican or Democrat, these two aims will not always coincide--and that the country is best served by ACCURATE intelligence, not politically useful information. How would the President be served by a CIA that served up only what he wanted to hear?

You say that the CIA is not a policy department. That is true. Its task is to provide accurate information so that the administration can make good policy. But, it's ridiculous to say that the CIA's proper role is to be SUBSERVIENT to administration policy. Its proper role is to be INDEPENDENT from such policy. And the Bush-Goss "reforms" are taking the former course, endangering our ability to get good intelligence no matter what the President may think of it.

You speak about the 9/11 failure, but you do not refer at all to the administration's failure in Iraq--where the CIA offered some unpleasant truths that the Bush administration simply refused to hear. And who turned out to be right? As for a failure to stop 9/11, do you remember who took terrorism off the front burner for the Justice Department before the attacks? That's right. John Ashcroft. The administration failed just as abysmally as the CIA when it came to 9/11. Given this fact, the more politically subservient CIA that you advocate would have failed just as badly at preventing the attacks.

You talk about loyalty, but your version of loyalty reads out of a football team playbook. The CIA's first duty isn't to serve the President; it is to serve the American people. The point of reforming the CIA should not be to punish it. That will satisfy right-wing attack dogs, but it won't make our intelligence any better. Instead, reform should make the CIA more effective at uncovering real intelligence, no matter how distasteful it may be to the President. Sometimes the truth hurts, but that doesn't mean that we should kill the messenger.

[Michael Miller]

"The Price of Loyalty".

Paul O'Neil understood all of this by the time he quit. He was loyal to America, or better yet, the idea of America. The price of that loyalty was leaving. Or maybe it was the price of loyalty to Bush he wasn't willing to pay. It's been a while since I read the book.

[MikeS]

d – once again your reactionary bent has clouded your view of the real issues here:

“the one group of people that has been most responsible for the failures with regards to terrorism over the past 12 years has been the CIA.”

I think it’s interesting that you lump blame for 9/11 failures together with terrorism in general when it suits you. I haven’t heard you criticize the president for prior warnings he received re: 9/11, but one of the clearest messages I got out of the 9/11 Report was that EVERYONE FAILED including W. According to the Report, up and down the line people were not inquisitive enough, or the bureaucracies in which they worked were not flexible enough and the result was 9/11. The Report cites gaffs by (but not limited to) Clinton, Bush, the FAA, Norad, INS, the Air Force, the FBI, and the CIA. Folks “in the know” on BOTH sides of the aisle have noted intelligence failures worked in concert with a whole host of other causes to result in the attacks, not JUST the CIA. I think labeling the CIA as the “most responsible” is way to general and justifies a purge that is clearly political.

“They are not being purged for being disloyal to the President they are being purged for being incompetent.”

NO! Look at the post – the administration is asking for a purge of those DISLOYAL TO THE PRESIDENT. This is NOT based on performance; it is based on whether or not you are popular with the president.
“The CIA is not republican or democrat, they exist to SERVE THE PRESIDENT. And to keep their MOUTHS SHUT.”
Yes, you are correct – they exist to serve the President, not to give him ONLY the answers he wants to hear, and this seems to be why people are being fired.

“They do not exist to obstruct the president, any president”

Disagreeing with your president is akin to being disloyal? Not only is it every citizen’s right to dissent, it’s your duty!

This war on dissent has to stop – it is ruining our country. Checks and balances are supposed to facilitate a constant push/pull relationship in our government, to temper policies and not allow any one branch to much power. I don’t agree with many of my compatriots who claim that Bush is stupid. However, and I’m sure you will disagree with this d, he does not seem to be the least bit intellectually curious. The impression I get based on reports is that our president doesn’t like it when people disagree with one of his notions. Guys like Luger and McCain report he doesn’t want to hear dissenting views, that there must be complete unanimity among administration staff, and that he governs “by the seat of his pants.” It seems he wants yes-men that will tell him what he wants to hear. People that don’t do that are labeled disloyal and are purged. I don’t think dissent is disloyal, and even if it was, is that a good enough reason to fire somebody?

One of the things you state well is that the CIA is not a policy-generating body. I agree. It certainly has to be as objective as humanly possible to give the president complete, well rounded intelligence estimates. Purging people labeled “disloyal” but who are experienced will not foster that unbiased process. In fact, relying on an agency of one political mind set or point of view is dangerous. The CIA needs to stay non artisan. Purging those that do not agree with the president certainly will result in a partisan agency.

[drm]

"It seems to me that you are confusing the leak issue with the 9/11 intelligence failure issue, which really have little to do with each other."

You don't understand. The leaks were intentionally done to HARM the President. Disent is fine but when people are actively working to undermine the President's policy that is the problem. The purge at state and CIA are against those actively working against the President.

Why do you think the lefts favorite republican, Sen. McCain, called the CIA a rogue agency?

"You seem to think that the agency's duty is to provide the President whatever intelligence he needs to bolster his own agenda, NO MATTER WHAT THE ACTUAL FACTS MAY BE. And that's why this "reform" is very dangerous." PLEASE POINT TO WHERE I SAID ANYTHING LIKE THIS....

The agency's duty is to provide the President quality intelligence, carry out the President's policy, AND NOT WORK TO UNDERMINE THE PRESIDENT. Very simple. I did not say provide the President with intelligence to bolster his agenda, as you put it.

"How can it be non-partisan if you place loyalty to the President's agenda above the professional task of providing good intelligence? "

Let me explain myself. When I say the CIA is not a policy shop I mean the President decides to takes us to War with Iraq. The CIA does not have to agree with the decision it just needs to provide the best intelligence to make the War a success. The President decides the course of action with regards to foreign policy, not the CIA. There is no conflict here.

When the CIA leaks info to damage the Pres. that is a big problem and those are the people that must be purged.

"How would the President be served by a CIA that served up only what he wanted to hear?" You keep repeating this and I have never said anything like this. This is not a repub or dem thing. When Clinton decided to sends troops into Samolia to capture the warlord the CIA needed to provide the best intelligence possible, they do not have to agree with Clinton's decision. When Clinton decided to bomb Kosovo the CIA needed to provide him the best intelligence possible, they do not have to agree with the decision.

It has nothing to do with serving up intelligence that the President wants to hear but the President cannot have rougue agents at the CIA leaking info trying to undermine the action any President decides upon.

"But, it's ridiculous to say that the CIA's proper role is to be SUBSERVIENT to administration policy. Its proper role is to be INDEPENDENT from such policy" I view subservient and independent the same. Each means, don't take action to undermine the policy. That is my main point. Any action taken to UNDERMINE a President's policy IS WRONG. That is the point I am making.

"but you do not refer at all to the administration's failure in Iraq--where the CIA offered some unpleasant truths that the Bush administration simply refused to hear". You do not get it. The President should take in all intelligence information, solid info, not so solid, speculations, dissent, etc, etc. And if the CIA did give "unpleasant truths", whatever that means, to the President then they did their job. But when the Director of the CIA says, "slam dunk" when Bush asked him if the info is all he had regarding WMD's what President would not take him at his word?

"As for a failure to stop 9/11, do you remember who took terrorism off the front burner for the Justice Department before the attacks? That's right. John Ashcroft." Please tell me when terrorism was ever on the front burner??? And don't say, Richard Clarke. The country was totally blindsided by the 9/11 attacks and that is CIA FAILURE BIG TIME.

"You talk about loyalty, but your version of loyalty reads out of a football team playbook. The CIA's first duty isn't to serve the President; it is to serve the American people. " HORSESHIT! We have a gov't in this country and the President is the Executive. The President's number 1 job is to protect the American People. The CIA's job is to provide the foreign intelligence to assist the President in doing his job. If the CIA's job is to serve me then why can't I fire them?

". Sometimes the truth hurts, but that doesn't mean that we should kill the messenger." WHAT TRUTH ARE YOU TALING ABOUT? WMDS in IRAQ? What does "SLAM DUNK" mean to you when the CIA utters those words to the president regarding WMDs in IRAQ.

[drm]

"Disagreeing with your president is akin to being disloyal? Not only is it every citizen’s right to dissent, it’s your duty!" How many times do I have to say it. DISSENT is not bad. Leaking to the press to undermine the President IS NOT DISSENT.

Look at it this way. A CEO of a fortune 500 gathers his top leaders together to get their thoughts on a marketing campaign on how to sell their new product. The CEO receives 5 different ideas. He decides on one idea. One of the VPs says, "I think you are making a mistake and this is why I think you are wrong.". The CEO says, I have made my decision and everyone must work to implement the course of action I chose. Now, if the VP he offered dissent takes action to undermine the course of action decided upon by the CEO then he is being disloyal and should be fired. If the VP takes the necessary steps to implement the CEOs plan then he is doing what he is supposed to be doing.

Look, Bush has a Harvard MBA, he was a business executive and a 2 term governor. I don't think he has a problem with dissenting opinions. I think many of his underlings get bent out of shape when their ideas/opinions are not acted upon by the President (Paul O'Neil for example).

"Disagreeing with your president is akin to being disloyal?" Here is how I view that. Disagreeing is not DISLOYAL. Undermine the Presidnet's course of action is DISLOYAL and grounds for firing.

"This war on dissent has to stop – it is ruining our country" I don't think this is happening.

"However, and I’m sure you will disagree with this d, he does not seem to be the least bit intellectually curious. The impression I get based on reports is that our president doesn’t like it when people disagree with one of his notions. Guys like Luger and McCain report he doesn’t want to hear dissenting views, that there must be complete unanimity among administration staff, and that he governs “by the seat of his pants.”

I guess you and I will never know if this is accurate or not. We don't get to sit in on cabinet meetings.

[MikeS]

Come on, d – they are firing people who are disloyal, not just the ones responsible for the “soft leaks.” I understand your analogy with the Fortune 500 company, and you make your point well. The flaw in your analogy is this: what the president is doing is silencing and firing people who simply don’t agree with him. Leaks are only part of it. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DISAGREE WITH HIM IN THE SLIGHTEST.

This is a guy who can’t admit mistakes and doesn’t reappraise what he is doing under any circumstances. You’re right, we can’t sit in on cabinet meetings, but can you deny the pervasive impression that this guy does what he wants, how he wants, no matter what the team HE PICKED has to say about it? OK, somehow McCain and Luger and the rest aren’t credible enough for you; take Christy Whitman, former EPA Sec and Chair of Bush’s reelection efforts in NJ. She stated that asking the president and his team for reasons behind a certain point of view was looked at as dissent and not welcome at cabinet meetings. This was one of the reasons she stepped down as EPA chief.

Come on, d, admit that this is a partisan purge. It’s pure power politics. Admitting that is not undermining your president, nobody will report you for soft leaks. I hope d meyers isn’t your real name, though….

[cheryl]

Please tell me when terrorism was ever on the front burner??? And don't say, Richard Clarke. The country was totally blindsided by the 9/11 attacks and that is CIA FAILURE BIG TIME.

Richard Clarke was jumping up and down like a kangaroo screaming 'Bin Laden' for MONTHS before 9/11.

Wolfowitz was not interested. Neither was Bush. Not even when the outgoing Clinton delivered them Bin Laden on a silver platter, not even when the CIA delivered them advance warning of the hijackings, did anyone in the White Hose give a damn. Not until the towers fell did they do anything, and the first thing they did was let all of Bin Laden's family flee the US.

'd', you are so fucking ignorant I want to puke all over your pinstripe suit.

This was a DELIBERATE plan to let a major terrorist attack occur in order to push through an extremist agenda. This was TREASON. The department that needs to be purged is the presidency!

[scardanelli]

"PLEASE POINT TO WHERE I SAID ANYTHING LIKE THIS...You keep repeating this and I have never said anything like this...I did not say provide the President with intelligence to bolster his agenda, as you put it."

You need some understanding of elementary logic here: your arguments have implications and consequences. What you refuse to see, is that your point of view necessarily places partisan loyalty above professional intelligence. You may not have said it, but it is the inescapable consequence of your position. And in this situation, CIA analysts will assume that their performance will be judged on their loyalty, not on their capability to provide good intelligence. MikeS pointed out to you that the purges are not just affecting the “soft leaks”—they are targeting people whose views are ‘disloyal.’ In this situation, the pressure to make intelligence conform to the President’s agenda will be nearly insurmoutable. And the objectivity of that intelligence will suffer as a result. Employee morale and the style of leadership matter.

"The CIA does not have to agree with the decision it just needs to provide the best intelligence to make the War a success...This is not a repub or dem thing."

Exactly. I couldn’t agree more. And they obviously did not do that before 9/11. But you have given us no reason to connect those intelligence failures with the leaks that disturb you so much. You have given us NO reason to think that purging “rogue agents” will help the CIA avoid making mistakes like those that led to 9/11. This is just about politics, pure and simple. What scares me (and I suspect it scares HWL and the other posters on this thread) is that you don’t seem to recognize this difference. After your kind finishes “reforming” the CIA, we’ll end up with an agency that’s more compliant, but no better at actually doing its job. The point of CIA reform should be to improve its intelligence-gathering capabilities, not to focus solely on “loyalty.”

The success of any CIA reform depends upon the spirit in which it is carried out. And that’s precisely what I find objectionable: that it is being done in a spirit of revenge and discipline, not constructive improvement. If you had uttered one word about getting more local contacts and agents on the ground around the world, better training in foreign languages and cultures, better cooperation with the FBI, better cooperation with international intelligence agencies, then I might be more inclined to credit your argument.

"I view subservient and independent the same. Each means, don't take action to undermine the policy."

Well, that’s interesting; my thesaurus lists them as antonyms. Look at a dictionary, why don’t you?

"That is my main point. Any action taken to UNDERMINE a President's policy IS WRONG. That is the point I am making."

Since you’re trying to lay down general principles here, forget the current situation and try a thought experiment: TRY to put yourself in the shoes of a whistle-blower for a moment. If you believe a President is FAILING in his job to protect the American people, do you stifle your reservations and your evidence just because that President hired you? Analogy: if a captain is steering a ship towards an iceberg, do the helmsman and the deck officers just act dumb, follow his orders, and ram into the iceberg? Now, that sounds a lot more like ‘horseshit’ to me.

Government officials are not corporate hirelings, Fortune 500 vice presidents, or foot soldiers: they are PUBLIC SERVANTS. They don’t just work for the President; they work for you and me. We pay their bills, after all. The loyalties and duties are completely different. Or have you forgotten what the phrase ‘public servant’ means?

This is the most terrifying part of your argument. Just because a President takes a certain course doesn’t mean that it is correct. And if it is incorrect, it will harm the welfare of the American people. But you insist that it’s more important for a government official to follow a President’s course even if it is wrong—even if it could harm the American people. In what sort of screwed-up moral universe can you actually say this with a straight face?

(Don’t get excited; I’m not talking in these last three paragraphs about the current President, I’m talking about the general case, as you are.)

"And don't say, Richard Clarke. "

Why? Because his book tears your argument regarding 9/11 to shreds? Sorry. You don’t get to discount evidence that demolishes your case.

"'Sometimes the truth hurts, but that doesn't mean that we should kill the messenger.' WHAT TRUTH ARE YOU TALING ABOUT? WMDS in IRAQ? What does 'SLAM DUNK' mean to you when the CIA utters those words to the president regarding WMDs in IRAQ."

Then what leaks are YOU talking about? Remember, the Director of the CIA is a political appointment. We’re not talking about the Director or what he said about Iraq. We’re talking about the intelligence professionals who staff the CIA from administration to administration. They are the ones presumably leaking information that hurts the President’s agenda, and they are the ones whom you want to discipline. Stay focused here.

[here's what's left]

d,

i think other people here seemed to have stated their objections well, and i agree with most of what's been said. there are several disturbing things about what's going on at the CIA. during his confirmation hearings, Goss said the following:

"I have made a commitment to nonpartisanship.[...] Rest assured, however, I understand completely the difference in obligations the position of (director of central intelligence) carries with it and that which the role of a congressman carries."

Many democrats objected to Goss's appointment precisely on partisan grounds. Goss had made some negative comments about John Kerry, and democrats were suspicious that he wouldn't act as a partisan in his role as CIA director. Their fears are turning out to have been well-founded.

there is a troubling aspect to your attitude, which seems to me to be reminiscent of what your party has become more generally. the distinction between the president's agenda and what's good for the country seems to become blurred in your mind, and you're unwilling to tolerate opinions that don't fit your preconception of the situation.

so you discount the example of richard clarke immediately, because he seems to represent a dissonant point of view.

you assume that the primary job of the CIA is to serve the president, not to serve the American people.

another problem with this discussion, is that, of course, the CIA has been very wrong about many things -- and the real question is who's fault is that. is it the president's political appointees or is it the career professionals? or are they both at fault to a certain extent. josh marshall has done extensive reporting on Niger uranium screw-up, writes the following:

"There has been a running battle along these 'political appointees' versus 'the professionals' lines at the Pentagon, the CIA and, to a much lesser degree, the State Department for more than three years. And by and large the Bush administration's 'political appointees' have been wrong almost every time. There are a few exceptions at the Pentagon -- the early stages of the Afghan campaign being the best example. But at the CIA it's really been pretty much a shut-out. And a number of those screw-ups have been ones of catastrophic proportions. "

"Yes, some of the commissions and investigations have worked to muddle or obscure this fact. And that's not to say that the CIA has gotten everything right. But in the cases where they got things wrong, it was always the case the the White House and the rest of the administration was pushing for wrong+1 or more likely wrong-squared."

"In our reporting on the Niger uranium fiasco, we tried to get very deep into what people at the State Department and the CIA were thinking about the Niger claims in the final months before the war. And the answer you hear in most cases when you ask why this or that problem with the evidence wasn't scrutinized more closely in those dwindling days, the answer you get, after you push past the rigamarole is that there wasn't much point. The die was cast. We were going to war one way or another, better to spend time preparing for it than churning over evidence the reliability or authenticity of which no one cared about anyway."

Remember, it was the president, after seeing the Saddam intelligence, that said that this intelligence "won't convince Joe Public," or something to that effect. And he made the decision to go to war anyway. By all accounts they were going to war no matter what.

So to me the fact that the CIA is being purged of people who are "disloyal" is putting a cart before a horse. The president's going to make whatever decision he's going to make, whether there's intelligence to support it or not. And you can ever give him weak intelligence, like what he was seeing on Iraq, or you can give him what he wants to here.

And your CEO analogy is fundamentally flawed, because it assumes that Bush is competent to be head of this country, which he hasn't shown any evidence that he is (how about that mistake? can he think of one now?). I remind you that no matter what his bio says, Bush was never anything but a failed businessman.

[drm]

" MikeS pointed out to you that the purges are not just affecting the “soft leaks”—they are targeting people whose views are ‘disloyal.’"

And what is your definition of disloyal? What is Mike S's definition of disloyal? Does disloyal mean disagreeing with the President? Or does it mean working against the path the President has chosen? There is a big, big, big difference.

"Well, that’s interesting; my thesaurus lists them as antonyms. Look at a dictionary, why don’t you?" My point is you can be independent, offer dissenting opinions, but still work to implement the President's agenda.

"What you refuse to see, is that your point of view necessarily places partisan loyalty above professional intelligence. You may not have said it, but it is the inescapable consequence of your position. " THAT IS YOUR OPINION and I do not agree with this assessment. You or I do not know what is going on in the CIA and I am giving my interpretation of what is happening, and you have a different opinion.

"Just because a President takes a certain course doesn’t mean that it is correct." You are absolutely correct here but it is not a CIA agent's job to make that call. Was it the correct action to go to war in Iraq? Well, I am sure that a lot of CIA agents did not think that was correct but the President made the call. So what is a CIA agent supposed to do? Undermine the President or continue to do his job? He is supposed to continue to do his job. If he doesn't like it then he needs to leave.

"But you insist that it’s more important for a government official to follow a President’s course even if it is wrong—even if it could harm the American people" You are damn right. If the government official cannot continue to do his job then he needs to quit. He can then spill his guts all he wants about how incorrect he think the President is. You cannot have an intelligence agency that actively works to undermine a sitting President. In our system of government many of the big decisions are left to the President. And yes, a President's decision can result in the death of people. The President is ultimately accountable to the electorate, CIA agents are not.

"Why? Because his book tears your argument regarding 9/11 to shreds? Sorry. You don’t get to discount evidence that demolishes your case." No because his earlier statements and private testimony contradicted what he wrote in his book.

"And your CEO analogy is fundamentally flawed, because it assumes that Bush is competent to be head of this country, which he hasn't shown any evidence that he is (how about that mistake? can he think of one now?). I remind you that no matter what his bio says, Bush was never anything but a failed businessman." This is the lamest of all lame arguements. John Kerry was nothing more than a failed Senator who accomplished next to nothing in 20 years. Clinton was a governor of a backwards ass state, etc, etc.

"Remember, it was the president, after seeing the Saddam intelligence, that said that this intelligence "won't convince Joe Public," or something to that effect" I think it was, "Is that all you got?" and Tenant said, "It's a slam dunk".