Unintelligence

I'm no doomsday prophet, and I don't see prosecution in the future for any member of this administration (although, you know, take your pick of lawbreakers). But clearly the winds are swirling in Washington. Today's resignation by CIA director George Tenet should come as no surprise. It means Tenet's record for the longest string of ineptitude by an intelligence-gathering organization in world history can remain unchallenged. From failing to connect the dots on 9-11, to describing the presence of WMD in Iraq as a "slam-dunk," to arresting a Portland lawyer in connection with March's Madrid train bombing based on a photocopied fingerprint, Tenet made Chief Wiggum look competent. But of course, the Prez was sure to pat him on the back on the way out the door:

"He told me he was resigning for personal reasons. I told him I'm sorry he's leaving. He's done a superb job on behalf of the American people," the president said at a hurriedly arranged announcement before boarding a helicopter to begin a trip to Europe. Cheney stood outside the Oval Office to watch Bush's announcement. (editor's note: isn't that creepy? You can almost hear Cheney cackling maniacally)

But in a classic case of burying the lead, this comes in about 3/4 of the way through the story:

Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner said he thought Tenet was pushed out.

"I think the president feels he's in enough trouble that he's got to begin to cast some of the blame for the morass that we are in in Iraq to somebody else, and this was one subtle way to do it," said Turner, himself a former CIA director.

Certainly, there's a lot of reasons for Bush to want to change the subject. Consider first the fact that he's had to hire a personal lawyer to counsel him about the Valerie Plame case, in which somebody in the White House outed Plame as a CIA agent as revenge for her husband criticizing them about Iraq. With rumors flying that Bush knew about the leak in advance, and that he may face a grand jury in the case, that paranoia is justified. But while the lawyer is there, I'm sure he can bill plenty of hours about the dozens of other scandals not coming to light.

Let's start with the Ahmad Chalabi-Iran case. It now appears that someone in the Defense Department let Chalabi know that we had broken Iran's intelligence code. And Chalabi did what any self-respecting double agent would do: he told an Iranian contact in Baghdad about it. That guy didn't believe Chalabi. So he wired back to Tehran, USING the Iranian intelligence code. And we intercepted the message, and found out the whole sordid mess. Someone's got to go down for that.

And then there's the revelation that Bush's buddy "Kenny Boy" Ken Lay and Enron deliberately manipulated the power crisis in California in 2001 to gouge millions of dollars from the state. The smoking gun in this case was a series of tapes that are so incriminating they almost sound fake. Here's a sample:

"They're fucking taking all the money back from you guys?" complains an Enron employee on the tapes. "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"

"Yeah, grandma Millie, man."

"Yeah, now she wants her fucking money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her ass for fucking $250 a megawatt hour."

I lived in San Francisco during that summer, and I remember the rolling blackouts at work practically every other day. It's unconscionable that so much of that was caused because Enron was demanding power plants to shut down to drive up prices. It's even more sickening considering that the energy mess was among the main reasons Gray Davis is no longer governor (and Ah-nuld is).

Of course, Bush doesn't know Ken Lay. Or Ahamad Chalabi. Remember?

The pillars are shaking in DC. Treason? Fraud? Illegal possession of firearms? Stay tuned...