I'm Sorry, But Michael Hayden is an Ass

He sits there cultivating that Botox stare, hiding his feelings at the hearings, as he elides ambiguities and parses still more redactions yet again. That's OK. Silence is fine with me. I love the NSA's sense of style too. Anonymous memorialization by big black sarcophagi? They say, once you go black you never go back, but I wouldn't know.

But I do ask that on those occasions he opens his mouth, he think through his position, by remembering he's not Michael Corleone, he's Mike Hayden.

Because the switch was on in the months after 9/11. They had the paradigm and the playing field and the power blender all to themselves, and a look back from seven years later shows a record stupidly arrogant and contemptuous of truth.

A case in point:

In his STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD BY LIEUTENANT GENERAL MICHAEL V. HAYDEN, BEFORE THE JOINT INQUIRY OF THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, 17 OCTOBER 2002

This inquiry is very important, and it has played an important role for us and for the country in determining why al-Qa'ida was able to attack on that day with little warning and how we can better detect and defeat these kinds of operations in the future. Since April, we have hosted your staff in office spaces at our headquarters. We have shared data with them and in response to their requests have made available over 2,750 documents, some 15,000 pages of material, and arranged over 200 face-to- face meetings. We have assigned some of our best people to work full time with them. We have done this because like you we are committed to finding the full story of what led up to September 11th and to eliminating systemic problems that hamper our ability to aggressively collect against terrorists.

INITIAL SCOPE AND SUPPLEMENTAL RULES FOR THE JOINT INQUIRY BEING
CONDUCTED BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND
           THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
Preamble

    To reduce the risk of future terrorist attacks; to honor
  the memories of the victims of the September 11 terrorist
  attacks by conducting a thorough search for facts to answer
  the many questions that their families and many Americans
  have raised; and to lay a basis for assessing the accountability of institutions and officials of government: