I, Spy

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act --George Orwell

President Bush recently told a military group that "asserting Iraq made the U.S. less safe swallows the enemy propaganda" ("Wall Street Journal", 9/30-10/01). I am so glad to have Bush on the watch, outing the moles in our very midst. It is all feeling very much like an episode of "I, Spy," with our own President ferreting out the double agents on our Federal security payroll, as we assuredly can't trust them.

Clearly, Bush mistakenly thinks we have paid for subversives to work in our own agencies. They have attempted to make us think that the Iraq invasion was a wrongheaded move, and the source of this "enemy propaganda" was none other than the consensus of all the intelligence agencies of the Federal government, accumulated in the recently released National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). I might add that their total budget is unknown, due to secrecy requirements.

So it seems that Federal agencies are now the source of insidious enemy propaganda... Lest you think I believe any of this, I do not. The agencies are faithfully fulfilling their assigned duties; the President should do the same.

What the President is really saying is that the intelligence professionals will not be compromised when doing what they do best--analysis. Too bad these words--non-compromising and analysis--are not in Bush's vocabulary.