Hoekstra is the story of the moment

* Laura:

"Hoekstra on Fox clarifies his concerns about unreported intelligence activities, and only adds to the alarm...

Tom Maguire is perhaps correct to say it's a leap that this concerns domestic intelligence. Perhaps it does, perhaps not. But what is the "major" "significant" intelligence activity that Hoekstra says he has learned about from whistleblowers, not from the White House? Under what authority was the head of the House intelligence committee not briefed of a major intelligence activity undertaken by the administration? And where are Hoekstra's Senate intel committee counterparts? Jane Harman? Were they briefed? And why is Hoekstra making sure his concerns are coming to light now in the Post, the NYT and Fox? Is something about to break?

* tpm:

" Question: does Hoekstra really want to oversee what the Administration is doing or is he distancing himself from the nastiness that will eventually come out?"

* maguire:

"Is the Times kidding? The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is "convinced" that a CIA faction is intent on discrediting the Administration and that the Plame story is part of their scheming, and the Times can barely mention it? (Or maybe I'm kidding - the WaPo does not mention it at all. Did I pick a bad morning to switch to decaf, or did they? )"

* i'm with tom, i mentioned this yesterday.

* emptywheel:

"It's against this background that we need to read Hoekstra's threat. He lost a partner at CIA when BushCo fired Porter Goss and replaced him with General Hayden. He worries that Steven Kappes will return professionalism to the CIA and expose any attempts--attempts that Hoekstra is quite fond of--to game the intelligence in service of the warmongers. And he's worried that DNI will have the power that he was supposed to have. It's not so much that Hoekstra is worried about intelligence reform. He's worried that Intelligence will no longer be his playground to use to accrue power and disinform the American people.
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This is Hoekstra suggesting that he will play hardball with the Administration if he, Hoekstra, continues to lose power. It's not so much that he minds Bush's illegal spying programs (on the contrary, Hoekstra emphasizes his support for Bush's illegal spying). But he knows he can use those programs to threaten Bush.
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With his embrace of falsified intelligence, Hoekstra is a man after Michael Ledeen's own heart (and don't forget Laura Rozen's tip that Ledeen's wife provided the tip on the outdated munitions to Santorum). And Hoekstra certainly seems to be siding with Rummy in the fight over control of intelligence. Hoekstra's invocation of "individuals both within and outside of the Administration" may refer to this crowd, the OSP types who invent intelligence.

But how does that relate to the Goss ouster, to the Wilkes' pimp service, and to Cunningham-Lewis-Doolittle (and others) abuses of the military and intelligence contracting?

I could be wrong, but we may be in the middle of a fight for power in which one side--the Administration--threatens to shut down the other side's gravy train of contracting kickbacks. And the other side--Congress--threatens to expose the Administration's illegal spying programs.

This could get fun. A pity it all comes at the expense of our Constitution and our nation's security."

read the rest.

if EW is right that there's a link to the wilkes gravy train, perhaps that is why the AP ran that odd 'breaking news' story that i mentioned the other day which was basically just a list of Wilkes' crimes and associated criminal investigations.

* it seems like Hoekstra is the story of the moment. wall-to-wall.