Bush has named the members of the commission to investigate the intelligence failings in Iraq:
Mr. [Charles] Robb, 64, . . . a Democrat; Judge Silberman, 68, was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Ronald Reagan in 1985. . .; Senator John S. McCain, Republican of Arizona; Lloyd Cutler, former White House counsel to President Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; Richard C. Levin, the president of Yale University; Admiral William O. Studeman, the former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Judge Patricia M. Wald, a former chief judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals who also served as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
This is a very credible panel. Well done.
The President of Yale University? Damn those Bonesmen and their insidious ties.
Otherwise, great list.
Von I agree. The only thing I would have done differently was find a way to put Joe Lieberman on the commission.
er, Von, you might wanna take a quick peek at Laurance Silberman’s record, both on and off the bench. Orcinus, natch, has some good links. Josh is on it. But trust me, you’re going to hear a lot more. He’s an almost unparalleled a-hole.
oh whoa, von! You might take a look at what the brief of the panel is before you start praising it. Check out TPM—it’s a whitewash from the start.
Silberman? Silberman?
Sanger in the NYT:
“… the commission’s makeup seems to have been influenced more by political balance than by depth of knowledge about the challenges facing the turf-conscious intelligence agencies. That is in sharp contrast to the last major investigative panel that the administration appointed, to examine the disaster involving the space shuttle Columbia. That panel had specialists on composites and propulsion, organizational dynamics and safety, along with experts who spend their lives thinking about the future of the space program.”
Billmon has McCain’s softball questions to Kay.
Orcinus – ’nuff said.
Ah, yes, Orcinus, in whose moral universe Chuck Robb is a Bush crony (note the bottom of his post). ’nuff said, indeed.
Postscript to above: isn’t it a grand conspiracy when a patron of Oliver North and the Democrat Senator who successfully defended his seat against North are BOTH members of “Team Bush”?
I have to disagree that these are good choices. Only a single person has the slightest background in intelligence or intelligence-related matters. That alone means the panel is poorly chosen. You need some expertise on the panel, preferably in a majority of the panel, to study the issues and understand them. Compare this to the commission that investigated the Columbia disaster, and the one that investigated the Challenger: experts all. And necessarily so. Would the panels have been better off without Feynman and all the other scientists and engineers? The record says otherwise.
This is a panel for a whitewash. Silberman is a notorious ultra-partisan who, while a Federal appeals court judge, led the plotting to bring down Bill Clinton. McCain is basically honest, but has declared in advance that he knows the President would never distort intelligence. Loyd Cutler is 89 years old, and knows squat about intelligence, but he’s the “Democratic” representative. Chuck Robb is a sleazeball who slunk out of office in shame and disgrace because only about 12 people would have voted for him by the end.
And, of course, the whole thing is designed simply to deflect all questions past the election. This is completely irresponsible, and completely partisan. It is a sham and a disgrace.