Hayden...there are several Senators whose judgement I trust...

Who voted for him. And several that did not.

The fact that Senators such as Leahy, Jeffords, Mikulski looked at this and voted for him gives me pause. I do not have a monopoly on wisdom. Leahy in particular makes me think that this was not such a slam dunk.

Hayden was going to be confirmed. Period. Hayden is a loyal bushbot who is up to his eyeballs in the NSA spying affair. A loyal bushbot. Just like Gonzalez, torture architect who uses his free time to derail Congressional investigations. Another loyal bushbot who felt the love of Democrats.

a good choice and said he stood up to the Bush Administration on the NSA spying. I am just not convinced yet that he was that bad. I think it was David Brock who said Hayden was fine.

this man is a criminal. why is that OK?

I dont care if he is a janitor or 4 star general or god. A criminal is a criminal. I can NEVER be ok with that.

of a Bushbot like Hayden. This man doesn't even understand the 4th amendment. How is that good for the leader of a spy agency?

He did stand up about the NSA spying, until one of Bush's lawyers told him it was legal, this is like
Fred Phelps changing his mind about Gays just because Elton John told him it was okay!!!!

Hayden is simply another fascist power mad tool in the Bush regime, bent on stripping this country of all that was once great about it. No, I don't have a monopoly on wisdom either, but I am wise enough to spot a fascist asshole when I see one, and that's exactly what I see in Hayden.

How much more of the Constitution gets to be ripped to shreds before people start saying Enough?

are an opposition party? . . . don't we have sufficient evidence to prove that they are, by and large, part of the problem and not part of the solution? . . .

Do you propose we just do without a CIA director for 2 years?

is of a simple military professional fatally accustomed to the rules and logic of his profession and very much bewildered by civilian Constitutional issues. It was easy in fact for the WH lawyers to snow him on legality. National security and CIC authority are simple buttons to press that make him step away from both his office and the real law. His conferences show a man out of his depth dealing with the WH. Not all military men, I am certain, are by their career training unfit to weigh these issues, but Hayden plainly, probably honestly, hardwired to put the CIC above all else. He did not even bother to understand the 4th Amendment, but in talks with lawyers, relied on assurances that his flawed ignorance was exactly on target when it agreed with them. On the other hand he became shaky, not defiant so much, when confronted with the awful reality. Confusion set in. personally then he has hope, possibly an underlying sincerity. Practically speaking he is a faithful tool in the wrong hands and unfit.

Those are the kindest things I can think of and in plain military thinking not exculpatory or mitigating for abuses and failures he signed off on. Judging by his own judgment, according to his own blunt military models he should go down with the ship of tools as much as the ship masters.

Democrats apparently have their own strange judgment and tragic fantasies and are more certainly(as things stand now, not in election year hopes) going down in approving these appointments.

True there is nothing we can do and the abuses seem headed for a fall, but today, sliding away from a present doomed stand is the real world of the present. Getting worse, hope uncertain.