Another Fiasco in the Making?

As you've probably heard, the White House is widely expected to nominate Gen. Michael Hayden, presently No. 2 to John Negroponte in the directorate of national intelligence, as Director of the CIA. Hayden's nomination would present Senate Democrats with a golden opportunity to roast the administration's unlawful, unconstitutional domestic wiretapping, both because Hayden used to head the NSA (which conducts the eavesdropping) and because he was trotted out to defend the program in December, in a major speech to the National Press Club. However, they may not get the chance.

It turns out that opposition to a Hayden nomination has surfaced from an unexpected quarter: congressional Republicans, who assert that his military rank and career make him unsuitable to head the nation's premier civilian intelligence agency. Those expressing this view include Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia. (You may remember him as the man who got to the Senate by questioning Max Cleland's patriotism.) As it happens, these members of the President's own party have a good point; it's about time that the separation of military from civilian agencies was re-emphasized, especially so in the wake of the Iraq debacle, in which the Department of Defense (with the connivance of W and Deadeye Dick) ran roughshod over the people at the CIA and State Department who--mirabile dictu!--turned out to be the ones who knew something about what was going on in Iraq, and what wasn't (WMD).

If Hayden's nomination is headed off or crippled by this opposition, we shall be faced--as this space predicted--either with an unqualified successor to the minimally-qualified Porter Goss, or a caretaker acting-director. Either would be another disaster from this most bumbling of administrations.