Eight Feet Deep

The feds, unlike the Verizon guy, may not hear us now. But they sure as hell know who you called.

A story in today’s “USA Today” revealed our buddies at the National Security Agency have tens of millions of phone records that were handed over from major phone companies including Verizon, AT&T and Bell South. I guess the NSA wants to check on all those calls they somehow didn’t get around to tapping into.

Of course, Incurious George (GW for short), says we just are targeting terrorists. Damn. Do terrorists make tens of millions of phone calls? Better go to Cingular and get better deals on nights and weekends. Here is actually what GW said this morning in response to this latest bombshell:

“We’re not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates. So far we’ve been very successful in preventing another attack on our soil. As a general matter, every time sensitive intelligence is leaked, it hurts our ability to defeat this enemy. Our most important job is to protect the American people from another attack, and we will do so within the laws of our country.”

That is, within the laws of our country as GW sees them. It seems he has his own special interpretation of the laws.

The latest revelation about domestic spying is making folks on Capitol Hill nervous — elections coming up and all. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., vowed to haul the heads of the telephone companies in front of Congress for a chat. Good luck. I hope he has better luck than he did with the weasel attorney general, Al Gonzales, who bobbed and weaved from every constructive question in February Senate hearings on the NSA warrantless surveillance program.

Amb. Joe Wilson, wife of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame, once said he would like to see Karl Rove “frog-walked” out of the White House in handcuffs. I’d like to see a whole line of folks frog-walked in handcuffs with GW and Tricky Dick Cheney at the front of the line.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen makes an interesting observation on the so-called interactive media. I don’t happen to agree with his original ire-provoking column in which he opined that Stephen Colbert was not funny during his bit at the recent White House Correspondent’s Association Dinner. I think Colbert was hilarious. Brutal, perhaps, but funny and possessing some acerbic and pointed observations. I also think Cohen sounds like he is whining in this column, but I can forgive him for that transgression.

When the paper I used to work for first began placing our phone number and e-mail addresses in a “shirt-tail” below our stories, I thought it pretty much sucked. I did manage to talk my boss into exempting the police blotter from the practice, as I was then the police reporter and was just inundated with people bitching about this and that. (“My boy ain’t guilty!” “That accident wasn’t my fault!”) It was pretty much self-serving central. Eventually, I came to accept the practice of the shirttail as a necessary evil. It was becoming the norm in the business. It did on occasion produce some decent story tips. But I still didn’t like it because I would say it was a good 80-20% that someone was bitching, calling you an idiot or worse, and usually didn’t have the guts to put a name to it either by phone or e-mail.

So I can relate to Cohen’s complaint about a digital lynch mob. It is an unfortunate byproduct of what is wonderful technology, the Internet and e-mail. But, sad to say, such discourse does not mean the result is always thoughtful commentary.

Since I don’t have a lot to do today, I decided to read up on President GW’s nominee for Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).

The selection by George of U.S. Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, understudy to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, to head the CIA has set off some alarm bells among members of Congress. Some are uncomfortable about his status as an active duty general. On its face it is not a totally convincing argument since several active duty generals and admirals have been CIA director during its 58-year-history. Two retired Navy admirals — Vice admiral William Francis Raborn, Jr. and Adm. Stansfield Turner — are also former DCIs.

But there is certainly more than meets the eye with respect to Hayden’s military status. For instance, there’s this guy named Donald Rumsfeld. You know him, Robert McNamara with hemorrhoids?

What is more worrisome to both Republican and Democratic lawmakers is the fact that the warrantless surveillance program used by the National Security Agency began under Hayden’s watch as NSA director.

It certainly can’t be said that “Bo” Hayden (I call him that — I would doubt anyone else does — for a very cheap chuckle ahead (maybe?)) is not intelligent about intelligence. For you see, Bo knows intelligence. HA! I can do that and no one can stop me. Talk about your raw power. I read Bo’s Air Force biography and found he’s been in the spook stuff his entire Air Force career. That is with exceptions of course. Such as:

July 1975 – August 1979, academic instructor and commandant of cadets, ROTC program, St. Michael’s College, Winooski, Vt.

I bet that was a hoot. And:

July 1984 – July 1986, air attache, U.S. Embassy, Sofia, People’s Republic of Bulgaria

Sounds like he either pissed off some higher up or lost a bet to get that duty.

Just in the past hour or so I read that Hayden might be softening his position a bit on his thinking that warrantless surveillance is the best thing in the War or Terror since Islam-friendly Meals Ready to Eat. Isn’t funny how you’ll say anything or do anything to get what you really want?

There would be one upside to Hayden leading the CIA. That is that he would give hope to history majors everywhere that they too can grow up to torture and wiretap someone. (Hayden got both a bachelor’s and master’s in history at Duquesne University).

So do you want to know my opinion about Gen. Michael “Bo” Hayden leading the CIA? You don’t? Are you sure? I will be happy to give you my opinion if you’ll just ask. Please? Okay, I didn’t want to give my opinion anyway. I think I’ll just close my blog for this post and reflect on why I get so little respect.

“I realize that I have issues, but can’t we talk about them after you go to Hell?”

Lately I have been busier than the front page of the Weekly World News so now that I have a little down time I thought I would catch things up with some odds and ends. (Hey, it’s a new mannequin!)

First of all, I found out quite a lot has been written about the efforts to rename East Texas and it has hiked up a heaping helping o’ scorn. I first discovered all the attention at Capitol Annex, which I rather like and plan to add to my blogroll. It was from the ‘Annex that I found out The Pine Blog was having a contest to rename East Texas. I had to throw my 1/2 cent into the contest, which is that if East Texas was going to be renamed, it should be named: “The Thicketalia.” (A word play on the Big Thicket and … you know) Of course, I find the blog name “The Pine Blog” hilarious because it is from the Lufkin-Nacogdoches area (or so I figure) and it seems to be satirizing the name “The Pine Log,” which was our campus newspaper at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches (Steve is what I call it.)

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With the big ol’ pervert who lived in the apartment below me back in the pen for a parole violation, it seems his empire got divided up on multiple tries. His apartment was burglarized three times since he has been gone. Loot taken included his hideous gold Escort station wagon that has a lock and chain on the hood (I’m not making this stuff up.) My landlord told me today that he finally had people just move everything out of the guy’s apartment and he left the broken window open for all to see that nothing is left inside. Sad. I can’t hear jack going on around this place with the exception of my neighbor’s car alarm going off at some ungodly hour.

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Whatever happened to Vivi the missing whippet show dog? I’ve not heard hide nor hair about the pooch in quite some time. I think perhaps she got addicted to the big city lights of New York, the town so nice they named it twice.

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Oh, I almost forgot to mention this. I have become the casual Southeast Texas/Louisiana desk for my pal and former co-worker Nate’s blog Common Sense. Like I have had enough time recently to work on two blogs. Actually I have cross-posted a few things. Nate is expanding his blogrizons though and I am always happy to help.

It would be nice to at least see a parade while standing at parade rest.

This photo brought back memories. I remember a sweltering June day circa 1976 in Gulfport, Miss., when I was standing on a “grinder,” or big, concrete parade field for a Navy change of command ceremony. The Navy district band from New Orleans was supposed to have been there. But they had to cancel because the then president of France was visiting their city. So we had playing all those Sousa marches, the high school band and twirlers from nearby Long Beach (Miss.) High School. It appeared that either some of the twirlers didn’t know or just forgot that one is not to stand stiff at parade rest (legs at an inverted “V” and both elbows out behind the back as the sailors in the above picture). Not moving can cause a restriction in blood flow, as it did for some of the poor twirlers, especially on such a hot, humid day. They started tumbling over like dominoes.

The sailors in this photo taken by Navy Photographer’s Mate Airman Richard Waite are at parade rest during a May 5 change of command ceremony on board the nuclear carrier U.S.S. Stennis in Bremerton, Wash. I hope these sailors didn’t forget to move their legs a little as the stood at parade rest.