Mike McConnell: caught again trying to deceive Congress

Digby

….DNI Michael McConnell? I understand that spooks, by nature and profession, are liars, but this fellow is not supposed to be political, and we are ostensibly in a democracy in which government employees — all government employees — work for the people. They are not allowed to lie to the people’s representatives, even if they think it’s for our own good.

McConnell’s position is supposed to be non-partisan and apolitical. And yet he is known to have consciously misled the congress, threatened them with “being responsible for American deaths” if they don’t do what he says and, it’s quite clear, strategized the FISA bill abortion last August with the White house, which is a big no-no. It’s a bad idea to trust anyone with the kind of power this man wields without strenuous oversight. It’s political malpractice to trust a man this manipulative and dishonest. He is a problem.

Here’s the latest example of his blatant (and disturbingly sloppy, which explains why our intelligence agencies can’t find water if they fall out of a boat) misleading of the congress:

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told Congress last week that a May wiretap that targeted Iraqi insurgents was delayed for 12 hours by attempts to comply with onerous surveillance laws, which slowed an effort to locate three U.S. soldiers who had been captured south of Baghdad.

But new details released this week portray a more complicated picture of the delay, which actually lasted about 9 1/2 hours and was caused primarily by legal wrangling between the Justice Department and intelligence officials over whether authorities had probable cause to begin the surveillance.

…
This is why all this “trust us, we’re keeping the boogeyman rom killing you in your bed” is so dangerous. Michael McConnell has repeatedly lied to congress. You can’t trust liars. If they needed this power for legitimate reasons they would have no reason to make up scenarios to justify it. They can always go behind closed doors and share classified information with the people’s representatives who are authorized to receive it. Indeed, we expect them to o it. The only conclusion you can come to is that they are using this power for nefarious reasons.

Michael McConnell has given interviews that call his judgment into question. He is a proven liar. He has shown himself to be a tool of the Bush Administration. What in the world is this man doing in charge of some of the most delicate intelligence functions in the government? He had a reputation for rectitude before took the job. but he either became tainted by the Cheney/Addington paranoid vision or he was highly overrated. Either way, the congress should never take his word for anything. There’s something very wrong with him.

Oregon State Police looking for scapegoat in death of two

This is over the line. The Oregon State Police are looking for the man who made a 911 call to report a car which went off the north side of Highway 26, 1/4 mile west of milepost 26, into brush.  In other words, he gave the exact location of the car and told the dispatcher that it could not be seen from the road. He had driven away from the scene to find a phone.

An OSP car responded immediately and the officer cruised slowly up and down the road for a couple of miles, stopped at one point (not at the described point), and did not get out of the car at the designated spot. He gave up the search after 30 minutes.

The car was spotted weeks later by an airplane, and proved to fit the description and location exactly, with two dead people inside. Exactly where the caller said. The brother in law of one of the victims:

Mulligan is angry the car was not found when that call came in on June 8.

“It had to be incompetence,” he said. “That’s the only way I can explain it. I’ve been searching here for two weeks. I’m not a policeman or anything else, but give me those directions and I’ll find that in a few minutes.”

Now the OSP want to pin the whole thing on the caller, for not returning to the scene. They say he may have falsified his name or number. I hope to hell they don’t find him. He did the right thing. They will try to crucify him. Meanwhile, the Oregon State Police, still smarting from the James Kim fiasco, will dance away.

Makes you not want to get involved, doesn’t it?