I just wanted to bring a very important story to the attention of our readers. Many people read the news articles about how Bush’s unconstitutional warrant-less wiretapping helped to arrest countless terrorists, something we were told we couldn’t doubt as Bush’s spymaster director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, unequivocally stated it as fact. However, many have missed the follow up story. Buried deep in the newspapers and broadcasts is the news that Mike McConnell has admitted to lying on this issue.
You see, it turns out that McConnell later admitted that none of the information used to arrest these terrorists was harvested using the anti-American and deceptively named “Protect America Act”. Looks like Bush’s golden goose has just been turned into pâté. McConnell even admitted that the information he gave congress was not at all truthful. Hopefully Congress will have the sense to charge him with the crimes he has committed, after all the Republicans reminded us under Clinton that lying to Congress was “The Biggest Deal Ever ™”.
Yet another point of proof of the truth of President Eisenhower’s timeless statement:
Un-American activity cannot be prevented or
routed out by employing un-American methods;
to preserve freedom we must use the tools that
freedom provides.”
Edit: Turns out the lies run deeper than expected. The military had already discovered these terrorists before the illegal wiretaps were even started.
-Angry Midwesterner
The 12 Angry Men Blog 
September 13, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Sigh. Could we stop using “lie” to mean “gave false information”? I mean all sides here. It is certainly possible that the DNI lied (intentionally gave misleading information for some purpose). But it is also possible that he simply made a mistake. In fact, according to actual experts quoted in that Newsweek article you link to, that’s more likely:
Of course, this doesn’t detract at all from the main point: do we need this law at all if it’s not doing any work. But I am getting annoyed at all sides using “lie” to mean “information we find out to be wrong.” Politics is a dirty enough business without accusing everyone of being liars whenever what they say turns out to be wrong. Life is messy, mistakes are inevitable, and the murky world of intelligence is even more so.
September 13, 2007 at 1:33 pm
If the DNI didn’t have the facts straight about the Intelligence, and gave information he didn’t know about to Congress under oath, then he is incompetent, irresponsible, and needs to be fired.
So you can pick, but he’s either:
“Another Bush appointee who is a lying scum sucking piece of filth”
or
“Another Bush appointee who is an incompetent bumbling oaf who is symptomatic of the corrupt cronyism and general incompetence of this administration”.
Your pick, my call is choice (A), since it took less than 24 hours to uncover the false statement.
September 13, 2007 at 3:16 pm
If the DNI didn’t have the facts straight about the Intelligence, and gave information he didn’t know about to Congress under oath, then he is incompetent, irresponsible, and needs to be fired.
No, he’s just a human being. People give false testimony to Congress under oath all the time, by mistake, without malice. Whether intentional or not, this was a pretty bad lapse, since Senator Lieberman asked for and received verification. But there are still lots of ways this goes without either gross incompetence or lying.
The simplest is that the DNI had some other operation in mind, or had mistaken intelligence we collected with that collected by our allies (most of whom, including the Germans, have powers which dwarf those granted by the Protect America Act).
So, I pick (C) “Another Bush appointee who makes a single mistake in hours of testimony in support of a controversial position.”
Certainly, Congress should call him back, put him on the spot, and grill him about what, exactly he thought he was saying. And if he can’t give a coherent reason for his lapse, then (A) and (B) are looking better.
But what if he presents intelligence, not directly related to the German case but related to some of those terrorists, which was collected pursuant to the Act and apologizes for lumping it in? Won’t you feel a little silly?
Mistakes happen, all the time, at all levels. They even happen to competent, intelligent individuals who don’t think that they could possibly make them. (In fact, they happen to those people all the time…)
September 13, 2007 at 4:45 pm
No, he’s just a human being. People give false testimony to Congress under oath all the time, by mistake, without malice. Whether intentional or not, this was a pretty bad lapse, since Senator Lieberman asked for and received verification. But there are still lots of ways this goes without either gross incompetence or lying.
No sorry, if the DNI doesn’t know something about intelligence, then he needs to say he isn’t sure and go back to check his facts. He has one job, to understand intelligence and its sources, if he can’t do that, he is incompetent. It would be one thing for a Senator to get it wrong, but for the DNI? His job means he needs to know what he is saying is true, especially when he knows legislation and policy hang in the balance. Anything else is gross irresponsibility.
So, I pick (C) “Another Bush appointee who makes a single mistake in hours of testimony in support of a controversial position.”
A large mistake about an unpopular program receiving a lot of press, whose future was being evaluated on the basis of his incorrect assertion.
Too bad Lieberman called his bluff with a fact check.
September 13, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Thank you for calling attention to the inconsistency, however it came about.