I wonder why Hayden has left the military? Any thoughts?

Per the AP:

Hayden, who holds the rank of four-star general, said he is taking the step because of “practical considerations related to military retirement.” He joined the CIA in 2006 but has continued to be paid by the Air Force. He will now be paid by the CIA but will also draw a military pension.

At the very least, now Mikey can “double-dip”. He gets paid by both the CIA and his service pension. Or in other words:

Shortery Mikey Hayden: “I just gave myself a raise. Doh! Why didn’t I think of that before?”

The significance of the Prince name might not be obvious at first:
– Betsy
– Erik

Yeah. Smallish world here.

It once again becomes the typical Bush situation – the Safavian defense: do I look really dumb and incompetent or do I look really criminal.

Did they ask him specifically about the Pentagon report on the violations of the Geneva Conventions for Padilla and al-Mari that was issued a month before Comey’s presser? Seems odd that he wouldn’t take an interest in the conditions imposed on a man his FBI agents were routinely questioning.

To give Yoo credit – at least he doesn’t run and hide behind some trumped up, “golly, I didn’t know they were going to take my memo saying they could do bad things and actually do bad things” For that, he’s much less of a coward than most of them have been. He’s evil and twit, but not so cowardly as to try to duck, dodge and hide so much.

You’ll be interested (and no doubt skeptical) that Mueller denied knowing any details of the Padilla interrogation in his testimony before HJC today.

If the committee has talked to those two highe ranking officials, that means those officials didn’t raise privilege, fourth branchiness, etc. to refuse to talk to them. Which to me smacks of someone who wants to help control the message while being able to distance themselves a bit from the actual conduct.

I’d kind of wonder about Bellinger (who tried so hard for so long to spin out what a white hat, anti-torture, kinda guy and had Clemmons IIRC spinning the ‘Bellinger is a good guy’ meme up until a couple of days before Bellinger refused to say it would be a bad thing to waterboard US soldiers) as one of the sources. He was in the loop both via NSC and later stepping (badly) into Taft’s shoes at State and he so desperately wants to spin out the theme that he is something better and purer than Cheney and Addington. Plus he’s a Rice firewall/message framer. Plus, while I don’t know this for a fact, just from the way that so many seem to try so hard to make nicey nice about him (Clemmons, Lederman, the writers of the Cheney series, etc.) he likely has a lot of friends he can call upon on the Intel committee staff. That would mean they could get the warm fuzzies that he was a good guy and voluntarily cooperated and spoke with them (their pal John) while he could use the friendships and connections to help shafpe the message – plus to non-threateningly threaten on the ‘do you really want people talking about what Jay Rockefeller and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Jane Harman knew about torture?) hint hing front – plus give his earnest dudley doright look while talking about how afraid everyone was and that making Bush ‘look good’ had nada to do with anything.

No real insights or reasons to think Bellinger more than anyone else, but just my reaction.

I

t is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Nope Abe. They diunnnnt and they don’t.