Now that confuses me. I blame him for spying on us for all these years. Why is Conason so praising of Hayden? Surprising. I don't see much Democratic opposition to him either, so maybe our party supports his nomination?
Maybe I am missing something?
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/05/19/hayden_cia/index.html?source=newsletter
May 19, 2006 | With the nomination of Gen. Michael V. Hayden to direct the Central Intelligence Agency before the Senate, the question that lingers in the air is whether he should be penalized for the trespasses of the president who chose him. Unless the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee uncover new derogatory information about him or his conduct as director of the National Security Agency, then the general's nomination should be approved as expected next week.
..."Yet while the president certainly deserves to be investigated (or worse) for his regime's apparent misconduct, the Hayden nomination is not the most appropriate forum for that reckoning. The nomination process is meant to determine whether the general is qualified to serve as CIA director, whether he has been truthful in his previous testimony before the Senate and how he intends to rebuild the agency.
Last April, Hayden came before the intelligence committee to be confirmed as deputy director of national intelligence under Director John Negroponte. At the time he testified that the NSA, which he then ran, had pursued its mission "absolutely in compliance with all U.S. law and the Constitution." During his confirmation testimony he elaborated on that answer. Government lawyers had assured him, he said, that his agency's expanded wiretapping program after 9/11 met legal and constitutional standards.
In the same breath, he alluded to "Article II" of the Constitution, which is shorthand for the president's war-making power. In other words, Hayden is shielding the NSA program -- and himself -- behind the same arguments used in the infamous Justice Department "torture memo." If the president says to do it, it isn't illegal, to paraphrase Richard Nixon's version of the same bad idea. What Hayden said is that he believed that the president was giving him a lawful order, and that the lawyers he relied upon told him so.
Was Hayden responsible for determining whether the Bush administration was violating the Constitution and the law? In the first instance, that was the responsibility of the attorneys general, both of whom failed in carrying it out; in the second instance, that responsibility belongs to Congress and the courts, which have done much less so far than they should.
He further says Hayden will treat the Senate with respect, is quite qualified, and Bush might send worse if Hayden is rejected.
I guess I don't understand the profuse praise for a man whose arrogance toward us was on display on TV this week.