We’ve analyzed here together the Agency’s [sic] diminished ethos, culture and identity across a decades long, tortiously slow march to ever deeper mediocrity. We spoke today with one of the New Breed, very cutters upper, forward leaning. (Yes, the only Ivy he’s seen is in his back yard). Nice, a good barbecue guest, supremely confident of ‘victory’. Still very much un self aware – who says without irony ‘Where I go blood follows?’
The usual issues are glaring – no foreign language skills except fragments ala airport signs leading to the head. There’s a clear ‘I belong to a club’ vibe, but unfortunately it’s Sams Club. The mindset confirms same old, same old – ‘victory’ is *obvious* – have we not taken down Al Qaeda’s No.3 at least 35 times? And their top military so-and-so 67 times? As Tim the Sorcerer said to the Monty Python entourage staring at a rabbit ‘Looook at the boooooones!’
One has to concede one thing. Leon is much better at PR than Hayden, Goss, or Mr. Slam Dunk.
Dr Leo Strauss says
From the Department of EPIC FAIL:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/can-algorithms-find-the-best-intelligence-analysts/
Comment says
“Besides Tang, what have we ever got out of the space program?”
~Tweety
Comment says
General Jello makes millions giving mediocre speeches, yet he must know – at some level – what he is all about.
He now has a bipartisan racket vested in sayin’ : “even Colin Powell thinks …”
Dr Leo Strauss says
The world ends not with a bang but a General Jello statement . . .
Comment says
Check out the classic weasel quote from General Powell:
http://trueslant.com/conorfriedersdorf/2010/04/12/paging-colin-powell/
Dr Leo Strauss says
So long, Steve Kappes. You did your best and worked with what you could. Few would have persevered so.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/14/AR2010041403134.html
SAM's Club says
In Spring 03 I was agnostic on the upcoming invasion of Iraq. I do recall ridiculing people (in online conversations) for buying into the WMD hype, “[…they] don’t get to sit at the adult table […] Kool-Aid will be served[…]” At the time it was thought (by amateurs like myself) to be a proxy war directed at the EU.
How many people actually read the NYT? Outside an echo chamber it doesn’t have the agenda setting power it had even 3 years ago. You can really measure it by the month now. Russia Today on youTube or the linknet containing nakedcapitalism both have more agenda-setting power _outside of the presently-ruling faction’s official front_ than does the NYT. That’s a situation probably only about 6 months old. Death of a thousand cuts, like this one:
http://www.archein21.com/2010/03/krugman-as-failure.html
Comment says
So you’re saying he is like someone from Montana who could be trained to infiltrate Idaho?
Comment says
OT – but a snapshot of true liberal priorities today on NY Times – most read article is David Brooks re Sandra Bullock – Number 10 article is off shore drilling.
jed says
So you don’t like leo strauss because you were against the iraq war…
SAM's Club says
edit: That should read $2×10^12.
Getting into hicky character has hidden costs.
SAM's Club says
That’s cute.
Are we false flagging ourselves over yonder just to get to keep the press on the Ruskies south flank, Gen. Ripper? If so, maybe the New Breed is necessarily operating under convenient illusion (convenient from pov of MidAtlanticBanks+DefenceIndustry), and the real Playas work elsewhere. Dispersed.
If them Chicoms deem themselves ‘decoupled’ successfully will they torpedo the US fiat by dumping $2^12?
If the fiat blows will the continental 48 start looking like Rwanda?
The big news so far in 2010 is the mainstreaming of outlier memetic vehicles, and of their cargo: for example 911-truth is now lurking under the surface like water-dragon, and it want to feed. That isn’t addressed then there will be no legitimacy in the eyes of most. It festers. The MSM lost their mojo in March-2010. It’s over. An 50+ yearlong era has ended. The center-of-gravity of American collective attention is dispersed across the web now. Fallout remains to be seen. Open question.