Philip Giraldi, the ex-CIA man who writes The American Conservative's invaluable gossip column, Deep Background, notes in the June 16th issue:
Intelligence analysts who have briefed Sen. John McCain on international issues generally report that he is not very knowledgeable about most parts of the world, despite his years of experience in government and his campaign's insistence that one of his principal strengths is foreign-policy expertise. When speaking with an area specialist or expert, McCain is primarily interested in stating his own perceptions and is not generally regarded as an attentive listener. Analysts do not like briefing him because he becomes angry and sometimes personally offensive when someone contradicts his view.
It's really not very hard at all for an important personage wrapped in the glamor of power to persuade lower ranking outsiders that he's a deep thinker. Obama is the master of it -- all you do is tell the person how much you value all the time they've put into developing their expertise (implying that you are very busy yourself on so many other important issues), nod attentively as they drone on, then bring up one or two semi-sophisticated questions you had your staff dream up for you ahead of time, and then finally summarize back for them what they just said with an appreciative hint of wonder in your voice implying that the scales are falling from your eyes. The flunkies will go away and tell everybody that you are the new Pericles. But Yosemite John can't bring himself to do even that.
One analyst stated that McCain's alleged expertise on international issues is essentially bogus. He speaks no foreign language, and his international experience [prior to Congress] derives from brief postings at military bases, junkets while serving as Navy liaison to the Senate, and the misfortune of his rather more extensive stay in the Hanoi Hilton.
As a Congressman, McCain served on committees dealing with Department of Interior issues, Indian affairs, and the problems of aging -- all areas of particular interest to his Arizona constituents. As a senator, he has served on the three committees dealing with the armed services, Indian affairs, and commerce. ...
According to the analysts who have interacted with McCain, his recent misstatements about various Muslim groups and other foreign-policy issues are not slips. They reflect a real lack of interest in other countries that makes it impossible for him to empathize with their problems...
McCain, whose foreign-policy advisers are exclusively neocons, receives regular briefings from the distinguished scholars at the American Enterprise Institute, which are presumably more to his taste than the less colorful information provided by the $42 billion per year intelligence community.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Steve -- McCain is as good as it gets with Senators in Foreign Affairs.
ReplyDeleteFirst, that intel briefers don't like him says nothing, most of them are arrogant and politicized idiots like Larry Johnson. Who famously wrote "The Declining Terrorist Threat" in July 2001, dismissing any mass-casualty terror attack in the US as a fantasy.
Nobody knows, or is interested in knowing, anything in the official intel agencies. This is because Congress controls them, holds periodic hearings for "heresy" and believes nutty things that intel analysts must adhere to: 1. that it is possible to find out what other nations and groups are doing without human intel from questionable, nasty people that is triple-checked against other sources, 2. that Global Warming is a greater threat than nuclear terrorism, 3. that sipping mint tea with some minister is a substitute for blackmail, bribery, and other nasty bits of coercion to get access to bugged conversations and documents of key decision makers.
People at AEI are at least as well informed as those in the CIA and other intel agencies, AEI called terrorism an increasing threat to the US domestically before 9/11.
McCain pushed normalization with Vietnam, which took some domestic political risk. His "mis-statements" on Shia-Sunni were more likely a Kinsleyan gaffe, i.e. revealing what everyone knows but doesn't want to say: Iran is funding anyone/everyone in Iraq against the US, including AQ-backed cells.
McCain backed the Surge and indeed pushed Bush to implement it when everyone said Iraq was lost and the Surge could not work. Which took political courage and listening to the Colonels and Majors on the ground in Iraq which McCain did.
McCain's experience in the Hanoi Hilton is probably the best we can expect from any US leader -- it is direct and concrete experience that most Third World leaders are NOT like us, using brutal violence and torture with abandon, with no Western rules or anything else limiting them. Given how nuclear proliferation gives even group like AQ the ability to kill US cities (providing they can "borrow" a spare Pakistani nuke, not hard considering) this is a good thing.
Vladimir Putin, the tribal leaders in Pakistan, the Saudis, the Iranians, are not suburban safe middle class people that Obama or most other political leaders in America have experience with. At least McCain got an up-close and personal experience with people who move up by killing people. They don't respond to hugs, only credible threats.
Underlings bitch. No suprise there.
ReplyDeleteProbably one thing that Neocons and the Ron-ulans (Paulites?) can agree on is that the tens of billions the US spends on intelligence should be drastically cut or eliminated.
ReplyDeleteThey're either both right or both wrong.
I think McCain is mostly a creation of the mass media. He learned one trick, which is by supporting the mass media position on something he would get a few hours coverage a week in glowing positive terms, at least relative to other Repubs.
ReplyDeleteThat is why he is still against ANWAR drilling. Its the attempt for the old automatic media approval. However McCain vs BHO, ugh, Mcain can pump oil into ANWAR and the media would demonize him and glow over BHO.
US INtel has been wrong about almost everything. I think it is totally political.
Philip Giraldi: ...a real lack of interest in other countries that makes it impossible for him to empathize with their problems...
ReplyDeleteUhh, remind me again: What's not to like here?
"He speaks no foreign language, "
ReplyDeleteHas any president spoken a foreign language since the days they all knew Latin and Greek?
And what does everybody think Bush and McCain's IQs are? I've always thought if you're in the running for president in a country of 300 million you've gotta be at least in the top 1%, but for either of these guys I don't see it.
McCain finished 894 out of 899 in his Navy class. Bush can't even speak. Do these guys get where they are by just being empty suits that different lobies and interests can fill with whatever they want?
"...They reflect a real lack of interest in other countries that makes it impossible for him to empathize with their problems.."
ReplyDeleteNo "empathy" for other countries? Yeah, that's important...
In Joseph Conrad's novel Nostromo there is an expatriate English doctor, Dr Monygham, who learns what it means to be a citizen of Costaguana, a fictitious South American country, not by learning the native language, but by being tortured under one of the country's corrupt regimes.
ReplyDeleteHave we ever had a president more experienced with man's heart of darkness than John McCain?
dmytro kornilov said..."And what does everybody think Bush and McCain's IQs are? I've always thought if you're in the running for president in a country of 300 million you've gotta be at least in the top 1%, but for either of these guys I don't see it."
ReplyDeleteNot true. Between 115 and 120 seems about right. Read: Greatness: Who Makes History and Why (Paperback) by Dean Keith Simonton (Author) "What does it take to go down in history as a great president or prime minister?..."
re: "McCain finished 894 out of 899 in his Navy class. Bush can't even speak. Do these guys get where they are by just being empty suits that different lobies and interests can fill with whatever they want?"
Time will tell with McCain. Bush however is ( or was smart ) read this article: http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000136.html. From the text:
"This is a Convair F-102 Delta Dagger. It is a second-generation, supersonic fighter-interceptor. It cruises at 845 mph.
There were some minor aerodynamic problems with the F-102. For example, at certain power settings and angles of attack like, say, take-off -- the jet compressor would stall and the aircraft would roll inverted. It is no picnic, skill-wise, to fly a modern F-16 with advanced avionics and fly-by-wire flight control systems. The workload on the F-102 was far higher. The F-16 has an accident rate of 4.14 occurrences per 100,000 flight hours. The F-102s accident rate was more than three times that: 13.69 per 100,000 hours. 875 F-102A interceptors were built; 259 almost 30% - were lost to accidents or enemy action while serving in Vietnam.
George W. Bush flew hundreds of hours in the F-102."
My college room mate went into the Air Force in the mid 1960s and was trained and flew the F-102. He told me it was a "widow maker" and especially stalled in right turns! ( The F-106 the follow up plane was engineered to not do this. ) It also crashed if the drogue chute failed to deploy to permit the plane to land as the F-102 landed at about 200 Knots air speed. The plane was not computerized as it was designed and built in the 1950s. Most pilots said ( according to my friend ) that one needed three hands to fly the plane.
A stupid man could not master this plane and George Bush flew it.
Dan Kurt
Intellectually lazy, arrogant, not a good listener.......
ReplyDelete.......who does that remind me of?
But of course! Our very own George Herbert Mountain Dew Bush. The master of strategery. The Deciderer.
Just what we need - another fighter jock. At least this one wasn't also a cheerleader.
McCain has experienced foreign countries differently from the usual VP airport lobbies and hotel suites that American politicians think is out there. His Vietnam experience makes him a man most suitable to manage American foreign policy. And he commands instinctive respect among foreigner leaders, which literate slum activists may find difficult to achieve.
ReplyDeleteThese comments are pretty scary.
ReplyDeleteThe CIA (excepting Tenent) new Iraq did not have WMD and that the various "sources" (curveball, the Italian Letter, Chilabi) where 100% bogus and they said so.
Tenent basically buckled under pressure and stopped listening to his team.
The AEI is motivated by one thing - the well being of Israel. On that basis alone, one can conclue there information is completely unreliable.
Also, I love how Putin is some sort of threat to the US. Putin poses zero threat to the US. The fact that you are trying to say otherwise demonstrates you are not a "reality based" thinker.
According to the proprietor of this website, Bush's SAT score of 1206 has been converted by "Linda Gottfredson, co-director of the University of Delaware-Johns Hopkins Project for the Study of Intelligence and Society."
ReplyDeleteShe "derived an IQ of 125, which is the 95th percentile."
While Bush isn't a genius, he is probably IQ-smart enough to be president. In fact, I doubt that a higher IQ, in and of itself, would make someone much more qualified. Gore, for example, has an IQ of 134. Are you more inclined to vote for the guy now?
In evaluating a president's decision-making capacity, we could break it down into three factors: intelligence (discussed above), knowledge, and insight.
Knowledge is a problem. The range of issues a president has to deal with is pretty daunting. Bush, of course, was notoriously ignorant of foreign policy, which is probably the case for most governors. Why would you know much about an issue you've never had to deal with before? To remediate this, a candidate needs to select good tutors and advisors. Bush didn't, whch brings us to the third factor.
When it comes to insight, or if you prefer, wisdom, I suspect that high IQ is of little, or maybe negative, consequence. Exceptionally smart people often (usually?) have an inferior understanding of human motivations, rewards, and so forth. A talented salesman with an IQ of 105 probably has a better grasp of why people do what they do than a physicist with an IQ of 150. (I think Steve has made this point before.)
Bush suffers here as well. Bright people like large, sweeping, systematic solutions to problems. They're systematizers, after all. Bush's Freedom Agenda, which he didn't actually dream up but which he did buy into, is the sort of ambitious scheme that appeals to abstract thinkers, but usually fails because it disregards cultural and motivational factors that just aren't acknowledged in the scheme. The same, of course, can be said for Marxism.
Bright people often find it difficult to accept the messiness and compromise of real life.
I don't know how IQ smart McCain is. Based on what he says, he doesn't seem to be very, but then again, that's true in spades for Bush, who sounds like a moron every time he steps behind a microphone. People say he (Bush)comes across as brighter in conversation (who knows).
McCain's judgment, or insight, or wisdom, seems to me to be highly suspect. His notoriously bad temper and impatience don't bode well. As I said above, regardless of a candidate's background, he's going to have to learn a lot before and while serving as president, and I fear that McCain is the kind of angry, chip-on-his-shoulder type who thinks he already knows all he needs to know. On the other hand, most everything people tell a candidate is driven by their own agenda, so maybe his testiness is just evidence of a good bullshit detector, of the Bob Dole variety.
In any event, I don't get a good vibe off the guy. He reminds me too much of the current Catastrophe-in-Chief, only with probable senility thrown in.
As a lifelong Republican, I'll probably be voting for McCain in November, but his cluelessness about Sunni Muslims vs. Shiite Muslims in Iraq (and nearby Iran) was just flat out painful. How could you not know that after 5 years of the Iraq war? I think in general he's even more clueless than GWB.
ReplyDeleteI really do think the GOP needs more people who understand these foreign issues critically.
"Do these guys get where they are by just being empty suits that different lobies and interests can fill with whatever they want?"
No where in the world do people like eggheads. But I think here in America in particular there's a very strong anti-intellectual bent. Just look at all the hero worship of boneheaded football and basketball players. Anyone who so much as wears glasses here is regarded with extreme suspicion. I think this is especially true in the Southern states, so any Republican who is running needs to do well there, and prove that they're no smarter than a deer hunting redneck from Texas.
testing99 said...
ReplyDeleteSteve -- McCain is as good as it gets with Senators in Foreign Affairs.
__________
This is correct and the ones that immerse themselves in foreign affairs go native like Rep. Lee Hamilton and Sen. Richard Lugar. Prolly due to too much interaction and influence by State Department types
Obama and the Clintons really only care about domestic policy because that's what gets you elected in America. Bil Clinton knew this viscerally. Any foreign policy he had was whim and vanity.
Please note the new leftist Prime Minister of Australia speaks Mandarin and knows Chinese culture. To what avail?
Black Sea .....
ReplyDeleteChuck Schumer and Eliot Spitzer got perfect SAT scores of 1600 when young. Their high IQ only helped them be evil geniuses, the kind Superman comics had
Wow, I'm disappointed by almost all of these comments.
ReplyDeleteOne poster totally lambasts the entire intelligence apparatus of America- something which I presume he only knows through second hand reports- on the basis that they didnt prevent 9/11, and elevates AEI, basically a pressure group for Israel, in their place and says they are as good.
A few other posters scoff at the idea of an travelled internationally-experienced, worldly president, as if it were ridiculous to have concern or understanding for other nations. Another poster claims that McCain is precisely this worldly-wise man, because he was tortured in a Vietnamese basement, thereby giving him insight into the workings of other nations and cultures.
Yet another reader doubts the importance of IQ for leadership and smears high-IQ people as knowing less about human motivation than those with lower IQs, based presumably on some experience with autistic nerds/recluses.
Poor showing, gentlemen.
"Yet another reader doubts the importance of IQ for leadership and smears high-IQ people as knowing less about human motivation . . ."
ReplyDeleteI'm questioning the contribution that IQ - beyond a certain point -makes to leadership ability. If we assume that GWB has an IQ of 125, that puts him in the top 5% of the population. I said that Bush is "probably IQ-smart enough to be president." The use of "probably" suggesats that 125 would be the lower end of the acceptable range for presidential IQ, although, since IQ interacts with a variety of other characteristics, I don't think there is a particular numerical "cut off" point.
Without any attempt at refutation, you simply claim that I am "smearing" high IQ people. I'm not sure that you have any reason to feel personally aggrieved on that account.
All other things being equal, a higher level of intelligence is always preferable. The point is that, as IQ rises, the other attributes of a leader aren't likely to remain equal. Einstein quite wisely turned down the presidency of Israel. His exceptionally high IQ, in and of itself, gives no reason for us to asume that he would have been a capable president.
Anyone who was worked in DC at the policy level has meet political appointees who can remember every briefing and policy paper they have ever seen. They are the obsessive-complusive types who make great under-secretaries.
ReplyDeleteMcCain is obviously not in that category. It is obvious that his staff does not work hard in preparation and that Senator McCain is both too lazy to work hard in preparation and too stupid to understand what his is being told.
Senator McCain has demonstrated on numerous occasions that he does not have the skills to be president. However, anyone who has ever met a fighter pilot would be able to realize this.
Chuck Schumer and Eliot Spitzer got perfect SAT scores of 1600 when young. Their high IQ only helped them be evil geniuses, the kind Superman comics had
ReplyDeleteAlso, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter both supposedly had pretty high IQs. A lot of good it did them.
I just want to send kudos to Steve for turning the same jaundiced eye on McCain that he has directed at Obama for months. I read this blog in part because I'm not an easily defined conservative or liberal and I was starting to find the continuous Obama bashing tiring simply because it was starting to sound partisan.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: Poor showing, gentlemen.
ReplyDeleteYou left out the guy who dissed all those redneck dear hunters.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteYou keep alluding to McCain's standing at Annapolis with respect to his IQ. It was so low because he collected bad conduct demerits like a badge of honor. From an Amazon description of THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG, a book about his Annapolis class:
"He treated the system throughout his four years like a hostile organism, something to beat back, keep at bay, as if any compromise meant surrendering a part of himself that he might never retrieve. John McCain at Annapolis, however, was not the John McCain of Episcopal days. He shed the punk image and became one of the most popular midshipmen in his class, if one of the least conventional.
He proved to be a natural leader, his magnetic personality making him the unofficial trail boss for a lusty band of carousers and partygoers known as the Bad Bunch. "People kind of gravitated to him," said Chuck Larson. "They would respond to his lead. They pretty much cared about his approval and they cared about what he thought." Larson, an ex-officio member of the Bad Bunch, was McCain's closest friend at the Academy and for some years after. They were known as the Odd Couple, McCain short, scrappy, the consummate screwup, Larson the model midshipman, tall, handsome, smooth, bright. They shared a sense of the absurd and an eye for the ladies. Larson, though, was cautious. Of course, he had more to be cautious about. McCain didn't know what the word meant. As one classmate put it, being on liberty with John McCain was like being in a train wreck."
Sounds like a fun dude.
I agree w/Testing 99 about intel guys. They are mostly dopes.
The emphasis on intelligence is beside the point. It takes little intelligence to understand Iraq. McCain cant tell the difference between Shia and Sunni after five years of the Iraq war. An ignoramus has no business as commander in chief.
ReplyDeleteI checked the AEI web site and they are indeed neo-cons to the bone. I mean Gertrude Himmelfarb?? The good news is they are seeking an editorial assistant. Any one in need of work? I have a feeling busines will be good for the AEI in the next few years...PS:I am not voting for McCain. I don think he knows what he's doing. The surge was good,how could a massive influx of troops and bribes not help to some degree??
ReplyDeleteIf Gore has an IQ of 134, his dismal educational record suggest some profound weakness of character.
ReplyDelete"No where in the world do people like eggheads. But I think here in America in particular there's a very strong anti-intellectual bent. Just look at all the hero worship of boneheaded football and basketball players. Anyone who so much as wears glasses here is regarded with extreme suspicion. I think this is especially true in the Southern states, so any Republican who is running needs to do well there, and prove that they're no smarter than a deer hunting redneck from Texas."
ReplyDeleteI don't blame the southerners for that, since in America high IQ seems to be correlated with hatred of them.
I agree with what you all said about high IQ not being the same as wisdom. One of the most disappointing things in my life has been going to college and seeing what militantly politically correct the intelligent are. I once asked a cultural anthropology teacher, the kind who reads Focault and Marx, if he was aware of Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate";this guy believed in 100% enviornment. I assumed that if he spent twenty years teaching that race and gender were social constructs he'd at least seek out the arguments of the other side and have a good answer for them.
You know what he told me? "I'm not an expert in genetics." Can you believe that?
So McCain doesn't know much about Islam.
ReplyDeleteWho do you want as Commander in Chief? Someone who knows about modern wars and weapons or someone who can tell you all about the Battle of Karbala, and the events before and after?
I grow weary of explaining this over and over. IQ acts like a threshold variable. That is to say below a certain threshold value you cannot function. Above that threshold it is largely irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteIQ has great predictive power for populations. It is missused for predictions about a single individual - assuming that individual is above the relevant threshold.
If IQ scores alone were important for individuals then a company seeking a CEO should just choose the one who got the highest score on a stadard test. There would be no need to hold interviews.
Would you choose a antisocial nerd with an IQ of 170 over a candidate with a solid business track record who only scored 130?
An IQ test is an appropriate tool for a first screening. Those who are smart enough are then judged on other criteria.
The average American CEo has an MBA and an IQ of about 125-130. That's George Bush. There are no CEOs with IQ of 85. On the other hand above the threshold of about 125-130 there is no correlation between IQ and excutive performance that anyone has ever measured.
IQ isn't the only personality trait its just the most important one. In a group of people all of whom are bright, IQ may not be very important at all. Other qualities like energy, integrity and leadership take over.
Bush was smart enough to be President. It is estimated that JFK had an IQ that was similar or perhaps a bit lower than Bush's. JFK had invincible charm but was a rather weak character. Bush is very strong interpersonally but fumbles in front of a microphone. Its hard to imagine Bush getting intimidated and humiliated by Kruschev the way JFK was.
Nixon was probably smarter than Reagan but Nixon was troubled by unfair criticism and Reagan wasn't. A thick skin has nothing to do with IQ but it can be very important in a public office.
McCain is smart enough to be President as is Obama.
Larry Johnson may be an idiot and he was political, but he was never an intel briefer and intel briefers are very different that Johnson.
ReplyDeletealbertosaurus:
ReplyDeleteI grow weary of explaining this over and over. IQ acts like a threshold variable. That is to say below a certain threshold value you cannot function. Above that threshold it is largely irrelevant.
That is actually completely incorrect and is contradicted by the evidence. Read Benbow's 1 in 10000 vs. 1 in 100 paper.
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/Peabody/SMPY/Top1in10000.pdf
Long story short, the 1 in 10000 have *much* better outcomes than the 1 in 100 -- e.g. 56% get PhDs vs. 25%, that kind of thing. The hypothesis of a threshold effect does not hold.
black whatever wrote:
ReplyDelete"All other things being equal, a higher level of intelligence is always preferable."
Great, I'm not one to argue so lets call it a night.
An other anonymous [coward] said...
ReplyDelete"Read Benbow's 1 in 10000 vs. 1 in 100 paper.
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/Peabody/SMPY/Top1in10000"
If you try this URL you will be sent back:
"Not Found
The requested URL /Peabody/SMPY/Top1in10000 was not found on this server."
This is the correct URL:
[www.vanderbilt.edu/Peabody/SMPY/Top1in10000.pdf]
Note: .pdf is needed at the end of the URL.
Dan
Juan McCain is being lionized by some on this board. Why, I don't know.
ReplyDeleteHe's just the Republican butt boy of the moment. He's no different than George Bush.
Bush is for open borders.
McCain is for open borders.
Bush is for the war for the Likud Party.
Ditto McCain.
What is it about McCain that some readers can not grasp?
He was anointed by the Necons to continue their agenda.
War without end in the Middle East by covert or overt means.
And the further dispossession of the native born.
Read anything on the immigration related blogs. McCain is despised by his own constituents in Arizona. Despised.
Regarding George Jr., he may going senile prematurely. His coherence and syntax were better when he was younger, as this vid. clip shows:
ReplyDeletehttp://youtube.com/watch?v=NvVilAlCBYc
McCain is despised by his own constituents in Arizona. Despised.
ReplyDeleteAnd Obama is lionized by his constituents in Illinois. Lionized. And I still ain't voting for him.
Unless someone as yet silent is planning on jumping into the fray and saving the day, we are in yet another lesser of two evils situation. Another four years of fighting back the idiocy and nation ruining advances of a President who should never have gotten the office. IMO, we'll have an easier time beating back McCain than Obama. Sole reason I'm voting for him.
IMO, we'll have an easier time beating back McCain than Obama. Sole reason I'm voting for him.
ReplyDeleteExcellent point. No one would like President McCain - the daggers would be out from Moment Number One. He would face a degree skepticism and resistance that, I think, Obama the Magic Negro would not be confronted with.
The only hope for whites is to throw sand in the government's gears, so to speak.
Of course, if McCain is so despised, he may have a problem becoming president in the first place...
I keep reading how McCain is despised in AZ.
ReplyDeleteI also keep reading that McCain keeps winning re-election in AZ.
McCain is also so depised in the GOP that he won its nomination long before Obama did in his party.
I'm obviously missing something here. Oh well.
I don't care whether McCain is smart or stupid. I'm voting AGAINST Obama and not FOR McCain. That means pushing the button in the voting both that minimize's Obama's chance of being the next president. That button has McCain's name next to it, but it's not a vote FOR McCain, it's a vote AGAINST Obama.
ReplyDeleteI had my opportunity to vote AGAINST McCain in the primaries, and I did. It's over now.
"I think McCain is mostly a creation of the mass media."
ReplyDeleteMcCAIN is a product of the mass media? McNut he may be, but media creation, I think not.
No. He's got solid history and doings behind him. Being brainwashed and mind controlled by the best of the lot sent from Moscow to do the job on the admiral's son. He's seen a lot of action; connected with a lot of faces.
The one you mean is OBAMA. He's the media creation. Where did this character come from and what the hell did he do? Oh, I know what he is--brown guy with runaway African dad and the typical-white-people-grandmother. But what has he done to deserve all this media sweet talk? He can't even formulate a meaningful phrase without his speechwriter and the wife is a spiked iron around his neck. So why is he touted as the next president? Bizarro world man. The 2 or so people who own the anglophone media want him in bad. Wonder why?
In 2002, the CIA analysts concluded that Saddam had only a few scraps left over from his 1980s WMD arsenal. McCain's Neocon advisors concluded that Saddam had a strong and thriving WMD program. In hindsight, we can see that the CIA was essentially correct and the Neocons were dead wrong. It is a shame that Cheney pressured Tenet into overruling his correct analysts.
ReplyDeleteThe same was true in the late 1970s with the Soviet threat. The Neocons (Pipes, Wolfowitz, Perle) dramatically overstated the size of the Soviet arsenal, whereas the CIA only slightly overstated it.
The fact that the media treated Neocons as credible analysts during the 2003 war debate simply highlights the media's right-wing bias on military issues.
Banish the Neocons from public debate, and clean out their brethren from the CIA. Let the CIA can go back to protecting our country.
His Vietnam experience makes him a man most suitable to manage American foreign policy.
ReplyDeleteYou mean John Kerry?
How, precisely, does McCain's Vietnam experience make him "a man most suitable to manage American foreign policy?"
What do you think of McCain's foreign policy initiatives with Mexico?
-Senor Doug
"And what does everybody think Bush and McCain's IQs are? I've always thought if you're in the running for president in a country of 300 million you've gotta be at least in the top 1%, but for either of these guys I don't see it.
ReplyDeleteMcCain finished 894 out of 899 in his Navy class. Bush can't even speak. Do these guys get where they are by just being empty suits that different lobies and interests can fill with whatever they want?"
Heh...
Hehehehehehehehe.
Simplistic?
Yes...
Has a ring of truth to it?
Uh-huh...
Welcome to American "democracy".