smart enough to hit the target

* "hawkishly-inclined Democrats" new motto: " Tough enough to pull the trigger, smart enough to hit the target"

* it seems that we have succeeded in knocking down just about every lie about Blinky - except one - and it drives me mad. can we please eradicate the 'fiercely loyal' meme?

* "The fired official, Mary O. McCarthy, “categorically denies being the source of the leak,” one of McCarthy’s friends and former colleagues, Rand Beers, said Monday after speaking to McCarthy." (link)

* "McCarthy, 61, a career CIA analyst... had been assured that the CIA would protect her privacy--just one day before her name became publicly known as the agency official who had been dismissed for leaking to the press, the source said." (link)

* "Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst who got into a dispute with McCarthy in the late l980s when she was his supervisor and remains critical of her management style, nonetheless says that he “never saw her allow her political [views] to cloud her analytical judgment.” Johnson maintains the Bush White House is “really damaging the intelligence community” by sending a message to career officials that “unless you are a partisan of the party in power, you cannot be trusted.” (link)

*

"Rumsfeld, interviewed on Tuesday by conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham, was asked if he had confidence in the current U.S. intelligence assessment that Iran is five to 10 years away from producing a nuclear weapon.

"No, I'm not confident," answered Rumsfeld, according to the transcript released on Friday. He added that U.S. intelligence agencies have had problems penetrating Iran.

"I think it's a very difficult target for our intelligence community," said Rumsfeld. "They work hard at it and they're fine people, but it's a difficult thing to do. Our visibility into their circumstance is imperfect."" (link)

bob joseph is equally uncertain. i wonder why that might be.... (hint)