Another socialist blog

Poor George Tenet. The former CIA director is on his book tour, whining about how the Bush administration trashed his reputation.

The hardest part of all this has just been listening to this for almost three years, listening to the vice president go on “Meet the Press” on the fifth year of 9/11, you know, and say, “Well, George Tenet said ’slam dunk,’” as if he needed me to say “slam dunk” to go to war with Iraq, as if he needed me to say that….

[Y]ou know, at the end of the day, the only thing you have is trust and honor in this world. That’s all you have. All you have is your reputation built on trust and your personal honor. When you don’t have that anymore, well, you know, there you go. Trust was broken.

He’s right about the importance of trust and honor. And he’s right to say (now, too late, when everybody knows it) that the Bush regime has proven itself unworthy of trust.

But excuse me, where was George Tenet four years ago? If it was dishonorable for Bush to lie about whether the CIA director was doing a good job, how much more dishonorable was it to stand silent while the White House was lying to drum up public support for the war? Tenet had to know they were lying, because he was in a position to compare what he told Bush, to what Bush told us. And what Bush told us, turned out to be unverified rumors, cherry-picked to serve the decision Bush had already made back in 2000. It’s all very well to denounce them as liars when you’re promoting your book, but a really honorable man would have stood up and spoken the truth when there was nothing to gain. Nothing, that is, but a bit of honor.

But just a little bit. The media should be much, much more skeptical of the honor and trustworthiness of anyone who would agree to serve as head of the CIA in the first place. Historically, the CIA is a criminal organization, and I’ve seen nothing in the last several years of political assassinations and secret prisons to change my mind.