“The herd will go back to their pen — and the general will take his seat.”

Sen. Pat Roberts (R., Kan.) banged the gavel to open the confirmation hearing of Gen. Michael Hayden to be CIA chief and ordered: “The herd will go back to their pen — and the general will take his seat.”

“That’s a Dodge City, Kansas, term,” explained Roberts, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He said it wasn’t meant to demean “the Fourth Estate, who obviously shines the light of darkness into truth, or whatever.” Later, he acknowledged his own newspaper ties. “I’m a former newspaperman, but I also appreciate the absolute necessity of keeping some things secret in the interest of national security,” he said. In the 1960s, after serving in the Marines, Roberts worked as a reporter and editor in Arizona.