CIA officers are being purged on the basis of their political affiliations. Josh Marshall:
The administration’s response to the ills of the intelligence agencies has been to further politicize them, to put them under more reliable political control. And that’s not surprising either since, from the White House perspective, the failures of the intelligence agencies weren’t not getting it right on WMD and other issues. It was getting it more right and then wrong and then talking about what had happened to the press.
Now as the consequences of their policies grow more severe and catastrophic and the news gets worse and worse, it’s batten down the hatches time. We should be surprised that a deeper purge is underway.
Just because the White House was trying to root out all but loyalists that doesn’t mean they didn’t catch McCarthy in a fireable offense. I don’t know. But this latest abuse of power from the White House deserves much more than a passing reference.
Feeling safer yet?
There is definitely a purge of “unreliable” elements within CIA, as well as NSA, DIA, and INR. While it’s easy to take the position that the means test for reliability consists solely of political loyalty to the Republican Party, that’s not quite accurate. There are certain specialized technical jobs that require some advanced training, and years of experience. People like that can be held in place and just closely supervised by an apparatchik.
But their long-term plan is to turn all the intelligence collection, analysis and interpretation into product that serves the political needs of the party, rather than what is sometimes termed “accuracy.”
The really interesting point in the Mary McCarthy story is her several-year hiatus at an outside agency and then return to the CIA - straight into the Inspector General’s Office.
There’s some deep meaning there.
Almost as bad will be the necessity for an echo purge when the Bush years are finally over.