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is of a simple military professional fatally accustomed to the rules and logic of his profession and very much bewildered by civilian Constitutional issues. It was easy in fact for the WH lawyers to snow him on legality. National security and CIC authority are simple buttons to press that make him step away from both his office and the real law. His conferences show a man out of his depth dealing with the WH. Not all military men, I am certain, are by their career training unfit to weigh these issues, but Hayden plainly, probably honestly, hardwired to put the CIC above all else. He did not even bother to understand the 4th Amendment, but in talks with lawyers, relied on assurances that his flawed ignorance was exactly on target when it agreed with them. On the other hand he became shaky, not defiant so much, when confronted with the awful reality. Confusion set in. personally then he has hope, possibly an underlying sincerity. Practically speaking he is a faithful tool in the wrong hands and unfit.
Those are the kindest things I can think of and in plain military thinking not exculpatory or mitigating for abuses and failures he signed off on. Judging by his own judgment, according to his own blunt military models he should go down with the ship of tools as much as the ship masters.
Democrats apparently have their own strange judgment and tragic fantasies and are more certainly(as things stand now, not in election year hopes) going down in approving these appointments.
True there is nothing we can do and the abuses seem headed for a fall, but today, sliding away from a present doomed stand is the real world of the present. Getting worse, hope uncertain.
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