Monday, May 08, 2006
On the Eighth Day of May...
...President Bush named a military general to run the Central Intelligence Agency -- despite the rather harsh instant judgment delivered by the head of the House Intelligence Committee, Pete Hoekstra, that Michael Hayden is the "wrong person, the wrong place, at the wrong time. We should not have a military person leading a civilian agency at this time.” Strong words coming from a House chairman for a key selection of his own party's president.
Hoekstra will use Hayden's nomination to focus on the military having a dominant role in the sifting of the various intelligence streams that will be coming into John Negroponte's office. Meanwhile, on the Senate side, Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter will look spotlight Hayden's role running the NSA's wiretapping program.
Interestingly enough (given yesterday's date), regular THOTS reader/contributor ERA reminds us that in the 1960s political thriller, Seven Days In May, America's military industrial complex attempts a coup:
No conspiracy theories here, but damn if these "life-moving-to-imitate-art" coincidences aren't a bit unnerving!
Technorati Tags: intelligence, Michael V. Hayden, George W. Bush, NSA
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Hoekstra will use Hayden's nomination to focus on the military having a dominant role in the sifting of the various intelligence streams that will be coming into John Negroponte's office. Meanwhile, on the Senate side, Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter will look spotlight Hayden's role running the NSA's wiretapping program.
Interestingly enough (given yesterday's date), regular THOTS reader/contributor ERA reminds us that in the 1960s political thriller, Seven Days In May, America's military industrial complex attempts a coup:
The plot itself, called ECOMCON (for "Emergency Communications Control"), entails the seizure of the nation's telephone, radio, and television network infrastructure by the JCS led by Air Force General James Mattoon Scott (Burt Lancaster). Once this is done, General Scott and his co-conspirators will control the nation's communications assets; then, from their headquarters within a vast underground nuclear shelter called "Mount Thunder" (based on the actual Alternate Seat of Government maintained by the U.S. at Mount Weather in Berryville Virginia), the conspirators will use the power of the media and the military to prevent the implementation of a nuclear disarment treaty with the USSR.The script was co-written by Rod Serling of The Twilight Zone -- and directed by John Frankenheimer who helmed another famous Cold War paranoia classic, The Manchurian Candidate.
No conspiracy theories here, but damn if these "life-moving-to-imitate-art" coincidences aren't a bit unnerving!
Technorati Tags: intelligence, Michael V. Hayden, George W. Bush, NSA
