YOUR SAFETY, THE SENATE'S FOOTBALL
NEW YORK POST
Editorial
May 19, 2006
CIA Director-designate Gen. Michael Hayden spoke an important truth yesterday in his opening statement at confirmation hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee: Intelligence-gathering, he said, has become "the football in American political discourse."
And though he didn't spell it out, the implication was clear: Politics has been winning out over national security.
Sadly, but predictably, committee Democrats did little to prove Hayden wrong.
They grilled Hayden over the administration's surveillance programs. Though pressed, he rightly refused to publicly disclose classified details of the reported database of domestic phone calls.
But what Hayden did say struck us as eminently sensible.
Asked why he had decided to proceed with the post-9/11 eavesdropping of U.S.-based international calls involving those with suspected terrorist involvement, Hayden replied: "When I had to make this personal decision in October 2001 . . . the math was pretty straightforward: I could not not do this."
That's something too many Democrats refuse to recognize.
Indeed, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the committee's chairman, complained that his colleagues were spending too little time on Hayden's qualifications, focusing instead on "controversy over NSA surveillance and eavesdropping programs" in a partisan bid to discredit the White House.
The issues confronting the next CIA chief are too critical to be mined for partisan advantage.
The perception in the political community is that those opposed to fundamental CIA reform won a big victory with the removal of Porter Goss as the agency's head. Hayden didn't specify whether he intends to continue the top-to-bottom housecleaning that Goss initiated, but he committed himself to reinvigorate the CIA's "proud culture of risk-taking."
Still unclear are his plans in one of the agency's critical shortcomings, which led to the notable failures preceding 9/11 and the Iraq war: its lack of human intelligence - spies - in strategic spots, and its inability to conduct covert operations.
Hayden's willingness to admit private clashes with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his public disagreement with some past CIA intelligence analyses should at least assuage those who have suggested he lacks sufficient independence.
Still, some committee Democrats couldn't resist the temptation to indulge in personal grandstanding. "I now have a difficult time with your credibility," piously proclaimed Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), suggesting Hayden had "parsed [his] words like a lawyer to intentionally mislead the public."
To which Hayden replied: "Well, senator, you're going to have to make a judgment on my character."
Indeed. And on that score, Hayden clearly deserves swift confirmation.
Unless the Democrats are still more interested in playing football.
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