CIA Redux

The AP picks up the story that some in Congress are worried about a military officer at the helm of the CIA.

OTB gives some in Congress a bit of a history lesson here. Check it out. Seems the CIA might have been at its best when such was the case with the Director.

While I am well aware how important the Founders thought it to keep military control of our government out of reach, that isn't close to what would be happening here. And our military has never done anything to cause great worry in this regard. So, why the great concern? One too many conspiracy movies? Or has the liberal media bashing of the military sunk in until even some Republicans buy into it?

Like Joyner, I don't get the concern. And history suggests it isn't a big deal.

Update: You might also want to click through and read about the COI and OSS. Some of it reads just like the headlines today.

As another European war loomed in the late 1930s, fears of fascist and Communist “Fifth Columns” in America prompted President Franklin D. Roosevelt to ask for greater coordination by the departmental intelligence arms. When little seemed to happen in response to his wish, he tried again in the spring of 1941, expressing his desire to make the traditional intelligence services take a strategic approach to the nation’s challenges—and to cooperate so that he did not have to arbitrate their squabbles. A few weeks later, Roosevelt in frustration resorted to a characteristic stratagem. With some subtle prompting from a pair of British officials—Admiral John H. Godfrey and William Stephenson (later Sir William)—FDR created a new organization to duplicate some of the functions of the existing agencies. The President on 11 July 1941 appointed William J. Donovan of New York to sort the mess as the Coordinator of Information (COI), the head of a new, civilian office attached to the White House.

Comments

[Crazy Politico]

Dan, history doesn't matter to certain folks. The only thing that does is a sound bite. If you keep it out of context, folks might actually think this is a first.

[dnichols]

I hope he goes in there and cleans house. Somebody needs to do it, and bet Hayden has the guts for the job.

[Phoenix]

If a military man has made it to four-star general, chances are he's never been bought, he's never succumbed to peer pressure, he's never sold out, he's never cared what polls have to say because the military doesn't DO polls, he's never lost respect from subordinates, he's maintained his integrity despite winds of change, he's been thoroughly reviewed innumerable times by efficiency reports and been found not lacking in any area, he's learned to kiss ass with great discernment and discipline and done so only for the good of his officers............ Gee. No wonder the politicos hate him. He's everything they're not.