Bloodless Coup

Bob Novak Criticizes the CIA

Yeah, I know - dog bites man, film at 11. But this latest column of his is pretty funny. Of course there's the real chuckle part where he feels the need to inform us that one agency official he is writing about is not a covert operative (so after outing one operative in his service to Team Bush is he going to have to do that every time he writes about people who work for the Agency?). And that very last line in which he shakes his finger at the CIA for criticizing the president is cute (in a sick, sad way). But overall this column suffers from 2 breathtaking assumptions: 1) it seems to imply that the CIA should never present information critical of White House policies (which would of course entail an egregious failure of duty on its part) and 2) that the "war" between the White House and the CIA is "news". The latter has been going on throughout most of the Bush presidency. Go back and read the press stories from 2001 (when the CIA thought the White House should care about terrorism) and 2002 (when they thought the White House was greatly exaggerating the Iraqi threat, and seeing a post-war Iraq in unrealistic, wildly-rosy-scenario terms).