SLAM DRUNK

There were at most a handful of administration players in the room-- George Tenet prefers to feign ignorance and a lack of concern about who leaked his celebrated 'Slam Drunk comment to consummate DC insider Bob Woodward (who was only too happy to curry favor from the Bushie crowd facilitating a deflection of public opinion by implicating the inept Tenet as a scapegoat for failure to find WMD's in Iraq) but was quick to peddle his abused integrity playing the victim card, "the most despicable thing that ever happened" to him.-- Since the promotional copy coming from the recent 60 Minutes interview with Medal of Freedom recipient and former CIA Director Tenet did not identify any of the potential leakers, it would appear Tenet is seeking Justice for his outraged bureaucratic sensibilities a whole lot less than drumming up potential book sales--

The 'woe is me' Tenet whines, "And the hardest part of all this has been just listening to this for almost three years, listening to the vice president go on Meet the Press on the fifth year [anniversary] of 9/11 and say, 'Well, George Tenet said slam dunk' as if he needed me to say 'slam dunk' to go to war with Iraq"........-- Never mind that 3500 American troops have had their young lives snuffed-out and tens of thousands more have met grievous wounds and psychological maiming-- Never mind 3 million Iraq refugees have lost their homes and jobs and family roots and a half million more have lost the breath of their life to boot-- The 'hardest part of all this' for the self-pitying Director of the Central Intelligence Agency ensconced in the air-conditioned comfort of his mahogany foxhole was not watching the the administration's incompetent war efforts implode in the insurgent dust of murderous Iraq and the subsequent devolution of American influence and stature worldwide but the VP Cheney's Machiavellian mis-characterization of a superficial cavalier soundbite to help sell a bogus threat as a rationale for pre-emptive eternal war--

"........And you listen to that and they never let it go. I mean, I became campaign talk. I was a talking point. 'Look at the idiot [who] told us and we decided to go to war.' -- What narcissistic pap!!!-- Beaming in the presence of the Decider in Chief, Mr. Tenet accepted his Medal of Freedom proud of his contribution enabling the Neocons' Project for a New American Century even as earmarks began to appear signaling an emergent insurgency quite capable of inflicting serious damage up to and including stalemate to occupation troops while the evidence of security problems countrywide became more and more visible-- Intel concerns had shifted from making a phony case for pre-emptive attack to administrative denial of Iraq's burgeoning insurgency but by then Tenet was gone--

For three years Mr. Tenet, incredibly, endured this malignant affront to his dignity and professional integrity in absolute silence-- 'Slam Dunk' now gets bandied about in mockery and verbal parody of any effort that overstates any case with faux and facile certitude-- Mr. Tenet's intellectual and professional reputation is now nil-- His ridiculous denials of torture strain credibility but the success of the "alternative techniques" he, now, endorses as being more intel-productive than anything his CIA effort was able to achieve over the years-- Why not challenge Cheney's misrepresentation immediately??-- Why wait three years to defend yourself??-- Why accept the medal??-- You went along to get along, crybaby!!--

That Cheney or Rummy or Rover or even Bush would seek to shift blame for the Iraq disaster to Tenet is not beyond the realm of possibility but entirely feasible and quite probable-- Imagine boss Cheney nodding as Bush nervously looking for a fall guy asks 'Hell,..... I mean,..... Why not stick Tenet's head in the meat-grinder?'-- The question suspended from a momentary eternity until......... "After all,...... he..... is...... a Clinton holdover"......... breaks the overwhelmingly unbearable silence-- The voice behind the White House curtain belongs to Woodward to which the grinning smirking Decider replies, "Slam Drunk"--