If you’re not busy, Ray over at Psuedorandom Thoughts has a terrific post on the White House and the CIA. Just a snippet:
It’s historically unprecedented for an intelligence agency to directly oppose presidential policy (it’s not at all so for the State Department, which partially accounts for that department’s many years in the wilderness and its diminished stature). The intelligence agencies, in particular CIA (the situation’s slightly different for the defense agencies), exist to serve the president, and such influence as they have is found in the degree the president chooses to trust their information, and their analysis. That’s how policy is made — they have no independent constituency, no extra leverage. If the president chooses to ignore their interpretation of events, relegate them to messenger-and-dirty-tricks status, that is his perogative. Getting on the bad side of the president is a stupid, stupid idea for anybody in the executive.
Amusing (while at the same time disturbing) is his October 2 post on a proposed new “social honor code” at Princeton “that would promote a more tolerant environment for minorities.” Ray writes:
Let me know where to report for my re-education session and the desired length of my self-criticism, comrade. As part of the same agenda, let us gloriously go embark on a “strike hard” campaign.
Better watch out, Ray - Big Brother’ll be monitoring your blog next.
