Another Partisan Hack For Bush To Fire

Before the pavement cools from the fast tracks of the departing federal attorneys, President Bush should shove one more federal employee out the door: CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden.

Hayden has showed himself to be a political hack; a Dem political hack.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra has asked Hayden and the CIA repeatedly during the Plame Game whether Valery Plame was a covert agent, and only got the run-around. As recently as today, Hayden was unresponsive on the matter, according to Robert Novak. That's odd, because Hayden was happy to tell the Dems that Plame's status was covert.

Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra could hardly believe what he heard last Friday on television as he watched a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic committee chairman, said his statement had been approved by the CIA director, Gen. Michael Hayden. That included the assertion that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative when her identity was revealed.

Even after reviewing and approving Waxman's statement that Plame was covert, Hayden continued to stiff-arm Hoekstra's querries. So he's a political hack unworthy of the position he holds.

Because nearly alll GOP reps boycotted the hearing, which they correctlyl viewed as too partisan, no one asked what Hayden was up to. Also not asked were these questions posed by Novak:

• Had not Plame been outed years ago by a Soviet agent?
  
  
• Was she not on an administrative, not operational, track at Langley?
  
  
• How could she be covert if, in public view, she drove to work each day at Langley?
  
  
• What about comments to me by then CIA spokesman Bill Harlow that Plame never would be given another foreign assignment?
  
  
• What about testimony to the FBI that her CIA employment was common knowledge in Washington?

Good questions; the kind of questions that should be asked at a Congressional hearing. Too bad the opportunity was missed.

Hat-tip: Real Clear Politics