Could there be anything more outrageous than a scene of the United States
senators engaged in harassing real people during various nomination hearings?
It turned out, there could be:
The Washington Post reports an AP story about Richard Lugar and John Kerry
spilling the beans on a CIA analyst during the John Bolton hearings:
Tuesday,
April 12, 2005; Page A10
Senators may have blown the cover of a covert CIA
officer yesterday.
During a hearing on John
R. Bolton's nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations, Bolton and
members of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee referred to the analyst as
"Mr. Smith." They were discussing one of the officials involved in a
dispute over what Democrats said was Bolton's inappropriate treatment of an
intelligence analyst who disagreed with him. [link]
"We referred to this other analyst at the CIA, whom I'll try and
call Mr. Smith here," Bolton said at one point.
But the committee chairman, Richard
G. Lugar (R-Ind.), and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) mentioned a name that had not previously come up in
public accounts of the intelligence flap.
In questioning Bolton, Kerry read
from a transcript of closed-door interviews that committee staffers conducted
with State Department officials before yesterday's hearing.
"Did
Otto Reich share his belief that [the person in question] should be removed
from his position? The answer is yes," Kerry said, characterizing one
interview. "Did John Bolton share that view?" Kerry asked. Again, he
said the answer was yes.
"As I said, I had lost
confidence in Mr. Smith, and I conveyed that," Bolton
replied. "I thought that was the honest thing to do."
It's Mr. Smith, Mr. Kerry, got it?!
posted by: jrtelegraph
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