Posted on 06/20/2006 10:34:35 PM PDT by pickrell
First, you have to frame the problem. How to orchestrate a multiple hatchet job on those men who, in a time of national fear and anxiety, stood a trembling nation back on it's feet, and said, "We will respond, and with vigor. No more swatting flies." At the same time, however, you have to find some magic way of presenting those discredited, terminated and bitter ex-employees of the agency which apparently failed in their duties to faithfully watch at the walls, but yet not expose them as bitter, disgruntled employees. Apparently, no one was supposed to notice your one-sided lineup, since this is what the mainstream media used to get away with for decades.
Frontline's writers had their hands full, you have to admit. It is no wonder that, operating under such a spite-driven agenda, they managed to reveal far more than they hoped to, and ended up far less effective than they aspired to be.
This evening's glorification of Richard Clarke, Joseph Wilson and the hand wringers, greatly clarified in many persons minds just how the nation came to watch those smoking towers fall in the first place. Words like quisling and weasel perhaps are used too quickly, when the more mundane realities of complacency, empire building, and simple bureaucratic tunnel-visioned tenure, seep into and corrode a gigantic bureaucracy entrusted with vast responsibilities.
The entire lineup of "witnesses", nearly all terminated employees of the Central Intelligence Agency, pointed to what a marvelous man George Tenant was, and what a terrible disappointment George Tenant is. It is a conjuring act we shall examine, but from behind the curtain, where any real investigator would watch the show.
The point was to be made that immediately after 9/11, Vice-President Cheney had attempted to covertly set up a rival intelligence service, rather than relying on the entrenched powers at the CIA. It was painted as dark, evil and conspiratorial. The point that the curtain was supposed to hide was why the Vice President and his colleagues felt the need to find an additional source of intelligence for the President.
Another point made was that in October of 2002, George Tenant walked into a closed session of the Senate and shocked everyone that no National Intelligence Estimate was available on Iraq. The payoff of that point was the awful pressure that Tenant and the CIA was then subjected to by the outraged Senate, to come up with an estimate in the following two weeks; such an estimate taking normally many months. The point that the curtain was supposed to hide was that the Agency, thirteen months after the most savage attack on United States civilians in its history, apparently had not yet "gotten around" to putting together an intelligence estimate on the one nation in the Middle East that we had actually been to war with recently.
Another point peeking out from behind that curtain was that many of the "witnesses" filmed in the attempt to aim the implications at the President's advisors, had apparently spent so much time on more important things, that the only nation in the last 70 years known to have actually used chemical weapons upon people, had to apparently wait while the more important "campaign to unseat the President in 2004" occupied their fervent attentions. In fairness to them, if the outraged and impatient Senators had simply been more patient, and allowed the 2004 election to be waged in the latter part of 2002... and 2003... and 2004..., then,"We wouldn't have felt so pressured after such a stingy and ungenerous 13- month time frame, to actually turn our attentions back to the duties we owed to the President and the American people".
One is supposed to wonder why the Vice President felt that the seriousness and urgency of the situation was perhaps not being fully appreciated by the likes of the Richard Clarkes of the Agency....
It was a terrible thing to have asked the people who completely failed to notice the ongoing collapse of the Soviet Union, the liberation of Poland, the invasion of Kuwait, and the new Coke flavor, to walk up to the front of the class and produce last year's homework assignment. You'd have thought that they were being asked to diagram sentences, or suchlike.
Was there some reason that these men in particular were the ones quietly fired after Tenant was replaced? There seems to be far less mystery now.
It is to be hoped that the ones left behind at the CIA are the quiet, competent ones who figure that their duty to their nation lies not in obstructing the policies of the duly elected Administration, nor manufacturing new slanders aimed at the U.S. military and it's duly appointed Secretary. Rather, that only dedicated intelligence professionals, less concerned with excusing their own ineptitude or worse ex post facto, and more concerned with providing to the military and the President that vital work they have been entrusted with, can fulfill their crucial obligations to the nation.
As for Frontline- all of the things which they worked so artistically to hang around Cheney amd Rumsfeld's necks- the concept of dereliction of duty towards truth, balance and cross-examination, seems to have miraculously evaded the writers themselves. The irony of Frontline's cobbling together of unexplored, un-cross-examined "testimony", stands as a stark example of the darkness which permeates the broadcasting syndicate.
When will the "Frontline" expose of Frontline's disregard for fact be airing?
The attempt to magic the rabbit into a bouquet of thistles, with the wave of their editing wand, seems to yielded long ears and a twitchy nose which somehow escaped the cutting-room floor.
You need some advice. Badly. Sure, the camera angles and artwork was well designed to paint the Vice President as a dark and devious character, who openly admits to the cameras "the need to do much of this work in the dark." A public figure who works tirelessly in support of our Chief Executive, in league with those of our allies in Great Britain, Australia and Poland, but without consulting John Murtha, is in your little world a man far too tricky to be without a political commissar watching him. Obviously the idea that a Vice President, who cares more about the safety of the nation... than someone who's sole interest lies in hawking his failing movie about the coming planetary meltdown..., would actually develop strategies and tactics critically important to the nation... without telling Katie Couric!{ Liars and typers and Blairs, Oh My! }... in secret, no less, is so unfathomable to you as to have led you to be careless in your hit piece.
For your next agitprop, take the time to eliminate all of those little discordant clues that a thinking person may be slapped in the face by, like so many inadvisably ignored tuna. It will undermine all of your slashes at your victim's capillaries, by exposing the aorta of your hypocrisy that infects so many in your band of zealots.
But cheer up; you may not have successfully libeled an entire administration, but you probably did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
well done.
Great Read. Thanks.
You are one heck of a writer. Kudos.
I didnt see it but here are a few questions
Who "lied" to Clinton to tell him that Iraq had WMDs?
We fought Iraq before, did we win ?
Could we have removed Saddam from power then if we had wanted too?
Since we waited till later to remove him is that a bad thing?
Why is the War in Afghanistan good, but the War in Iraq is bad?
If more soldiers had died in Afghanistan and it had taken longer to win,would it be a bad war?
Er, for starters, the guy's name is George Tenet, not Tenant.
http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/dddcia/tenet.html
Tenet came from the Clinton "national security" bench and replaced John Deutch, whose conduct as DCI was such that Clinton had to waste a valuable pardon, which Hillary could have sold for tens of thousands, on him.
http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/dddcia/deutch.html
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Bump for later. (Click on ID for additional posts)
Good Stuff, Thanks!
Ping for later
There is nothing more revolting than channel-surfing across a Frontline episode. The grim-reaper narrator, the doom-laden synthesizer background music, the ominous sense of apocalypse; all to portray us as evil, week after week after week.
And all paid for by your tax dollars and mine. Sickening.
Frankly, the Frontline smear piece was a 'masterful' combination of slander and treason. If he were alive today, Joseph Goebbels could not have created a better piece of propaganda, nor Michael Moore.
BTW, Joseph Wilson was presented as a true patriot. Can you believe that?
Anyway, there was a live thread during the broadcast last night at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1652784/posts
You're right, of course. I always misspell at least something, when the blood is in my eyes and I am frankly steamed. Thanks for the correction.
In confirmation, the CIA has announced that George is no longer a Tenant...
That Richard Clarke is a snide piece of work isn't he? You could just see the venom pouring out of him. And, we know where the prize-winning prize, Dana Priest ended up.
that's the great part about my DirecTV "favorites" list
PBS doesn't even show up when I surf
:-)
Well, I have DISH, and watch Antiques Roadshow sometimes...I deliberately watched frontline though to see how bad it would be.
Great post. I saw this Frontline (hit) piece. I thought it strange that Richard Clarke and David Kay were talking about Saddam's Nuclear program actually being only 18 months away from having an actual bomb. I thought there were no WMD. These democrats have outdone themselves making W's points for him.
Excellent. Beyond excellent actually, more like brilliant and a great read.
That line made me laugh out loud. How long did it take you to put that one together?
Thanks.
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