CIA's Pick to Run Spies: No Woman No Cry

The CIA's pick to head the CIA's National Clandestine Service was identified in a tweet Wednesday as Francis (Frank) Archibald, 57, head of the Latin America Division since about 2011 and a paramilitary specialist.
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Shameless Lindsey Graham's Boston Cracks Blow Up in His Face

BY JEFF STEIN

Does Lindsey Graham have a screw loose? Or is he just shameless in his latest attempt to wring partisan advantage from a national tragedy?

Whatever, his latest attacks on an American intelligence agency blew up on him Monday like a trick cigar.

Broadwell's Petraeus Book Rushing to Paperback

Penquin Books is working overtime to rush out the paperback version of Paula Broadwell’s infamous biography, “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus,” according to an industry insider.

Hey, it’s a business.

Surely not far behind: A tell-all about her affair with the legendary ex-general. (“All Out”?)  After that, it's not hard to see a cable movie, even a talk show, advice column, beauty tips and TV commercials in her future.

What a great country.

And it would hardly be a surprise.

According to voluminous news reports, including today’s riveting Washington Post story on Broadwell’s dizzying accent through the capitol’s military and think-tank elites, the comely West Point grad and long distance jogger is quite the striver, shedding prevarications in her resume like so many candy wrappers.

Speaking of which, Penguin might consider editing her author’s bio on its web page.

White House Leaks Iran Spy Flights to Rebuff Romney and Other War Hawks

You’d think that sensitive spying operations against a hard target like Iran would normally be kept out of politics.

You’d be wrong, of course -- and these aren’t normal times, with Israeli extremists and Republican chickenhawks clamoring for a reckless military strike on Iran.

So the Obama administration used secret intelligence and The Washington Post this weekend to fend off war mongers that it’s soft on Iran -- and more:  to send the message that a military attack is unnecessary, at least for now.

Perry and Israel: Nuts

Evidently unable or unwilling to stop pandering to the right-wing lunatic fringe on issues ranging from social security to global warming, Texas Gov. Rick Perry accelerated his flight to the reality exosphere Wednesday by charging President Obama with a “policy of appeasement” toward the Palestinians.

"Appeasement" would come as a surprise to the long-suffering residents of Gaza and other Arabs--not to mention dissenting Israelis--who have been powerless to stop the steady encroachment of Jewish settlements under hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Gingrich wife worked for committee heavily lobbied by Tiffany

 At the same time Tiffany & Co. was extending Callista (Bisek) Gingrich a virtual interest-free loan of tens of thousands of dollars, the diamond and silverware firm was spending big bucks to influence mining policy in Congress and in agencies over which the House Agriculture Committee--where she worked--had jurisdiction, official records show.

Filings by Tiffany’s lobbyist, Cassidy & Co., and other government records show that the firm’s spending on  “mining law and mine permitting-related issues” in Congress, as well as the Forest Service, the Interior Department, and Interior’s  Bureau of Land Management shot up sharply between during the period when Callista Gingrich was chief clerk at the House Agriculture Committee.

Tiffany's annual lobbying expenditures rose from about $100,000 to $360,000 between 2005 and 2009, according to records assembled by the Center for Responsive Politics,  a nonpartisan government watchdog organization. 

The Forest Service, which comes under the committee’s jurisdiction, oversees mining, including silver mining, in federal forests.

Silver, of course, is a big part of Tiffany & Co.’s business.

On Thursday, Tiffany issued a statement denying that it had lobbied the Agriculture Committee or discussed mining isues with Callista or Newt Gingrich.  But is was also reported that Christy Evans, a floor assistant to Republican Whip Rep. Newt Gingrich and now a lobbyist at Cassidy & Associates, has represented Tiffany's on mining issues since 2000.

Gingrich’s campaign Web site makes no specific mention of mining in its description of his wife’s duties.

“During her tenure, the Agriculture Committee held hearings on a wide range of issues including biotechnology, bioterrorism, conservation, forest management, nutrition, rural development, trade, and welfare reform,” it says.

According to her filings, Callista Gingrich listed debts to Tiffany of between $250,001 to $500,000 on a “revolving charge account”  during 2005-2006. After she left in 2007, she was no longer required to report her finances.

The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler wrote that he was “puzzled” by Newt Gingrich’s “claim that he had a ‘standard, no-interest account’ at Tiffany & Co.”

“Would Tiffany really charge no interest for that period of time on that amount of money?” he asked.

With Bin Laden Gone, U.S. Can Leave Afghanistan

With Osama Bin Laden dead, President Obama should find it far easier to justify withdrawing U.S. ground troops from Afghanistan.

After all, that’s why U.S. troops went there in the first place. 

Now that he’s gone, the rationale for staying evaporates.

No matter that the war was increasingly unpopular in America,  leaving Afghanistan was always a practical political problem for Obama with the elusive al Qaeda leader alive. A troop withdrawal presented Obama with the unpalatable prospect of leaving Bin Laden the last man standing.

To all but the hardiest true believers now, Afghanistan’s endemic corruption has made nation-building a mirage.  It's time to let them do it themselves.

Bin Laden & Obama: Democrats No Longer 'Weak' on National Security?

With one word -- “Go” -- President Obama may have brought Democrats back from the wilderness on national security issues.

For over 30 years, ever since Jimmy Carter presided over the disastrous 1980 rescue attempt of American hostages in Iran, Republicans made hay on the charge that Democrats were "weak” on national security issues.

No matter that Carter’s successor had his own disaster--Ronald Reagan turned tail in Lebanon after the murder of 241 American servicemen by a Beirut suicide bomber in 1983--Republicans’ nurtured their  image as strong on defense with the collapse of the Soviet Union on President George H. W. Bush’s watch and his victory in the so-called “100 hours war” in Kuwait.

In sharp contrast, Bill Clinton’s failure to capture Bin Laden after the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, and again five years later after the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, solidified the Democrats’ reputation as weak.

Not even Sen. John F. Kerry's reputation as a Vietnam war hero survived the Republicans' onslaught on behalf of George W. Bush, a Texas Air National Guard pilot who, along with some of his closest aides,  dodged war duty.

Only days ago Obama seemed slated for the same ignominy as other Democrats with his handling of the popular revolutions that have swept the Arab world. Even critics in his own party were calling him  weak.

Then he got a tip about the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden.