Dennis Blair resigns...and it takes a while to find out why.

[OCinBuffalo]

Here's what I think I know based on reading a bunch of articles from different sources and all sides:

1. This guy was a career intelligence officer who didn't pull punches. Basically a straight shooter with little interest in shaping what he said to suit his listener's ideology.

2. This guy was in a position that was poorly defined by Bush, and continues to be poorly defined. He had of the responsibility and nowhere near enough authority. The only way you can be successful in this role is to not be the guy defined by #1.

3. This guy repeatedly and again recently went out and told this administration they were idiots, what had to be done instead of what they were doing, no excuses, and was often telling the truth.

4. This guy had an ongoing fight with the CIA guy, Panetta(um, career politician), and kept losing because Obama kept taking Panetta's side.

5. The reason why #4 kept happening is that the career intelligence officer, who is doing his job, was telling this administration things it didn't want to hear, politically.

6. This administration feels that the Justice Department and FBI should be in charge of intelligence, rather than the intelligence community being in charge of intelligence. It's the same old song: terrorism as a law enforcement issue instead of the war that it truly is. What's it going to take for these people to understand that we are fighting a global war against an evil ideology?

7. Ultimately, this guy was making his boss look bad, which is not acceptable in any organization. Right or wrong, you aren't more important than the team, and the boss is the boss. There are ways to handle all of this, and not end up holding the bag if people don't listen to you. This guy chose none of them, and ended up getting fired.

 

In the final analysis this guy ended up being Dead Right. He's right, but he's still dead. And, why the hell is a career politician in charge of the CIA? Or, what's the best way to marginalize the CIA? Answer: put a career politician in charge.

 

So...finally, literally everything has been politicized in this Administration. Every single one of you who said "Bush Lied" or "Bush only looked for intelligence to support invading Iraq", can officially blow it our your azz, because for all your phony moral superiority, your guy is actually doing the very thing you accused Bush of doing.

 

Tell me if you will feel safer with a yes man informing the President what he needs to attend to in the war on terror, provided his advice is politically congruent. Which means of course: that the war on terror isn't a war at all, and, that these Islamic Nazis aren't evil, they just have a different point of view.

[DrFishfinder]

Typical "Somebody has to fall on the sword" politics.

[Nanker]

Then there's this.

An already strained relationship between the White House and the departing spymaster Dennis C. Blair erupted earlier this year over Mr. Blair’s efforts to cement close intelligence ties to France and broker a pledge between the nations not to spy on each other, American government officials said Friday.

 

The White House scuttled the plan, officials said, but not before President Nicolas Sarkozy of France had come to believe that a deal was in place. Officials said that Mr. Sarkozy was angered about the miscommunication, and that the episode had hurt ties between the United States and France at a time when the two nations are trying to present a united front to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program.

 

Officials said the dust-up was not the proximate cause of President Obama’s decision to remove Mr. Blair, who announced his resignation on Thursday, from the job as director of national intelligence, but was a contributing factor in the mutual distrust between the White House and members of Mr. Blair’s staff. The episode also illuminates the extent to which communications between the president’s aides and Mr. Blair had deteriorated during a period of particular alarm about terrorist threats to the United States.

So the Santa-wanna-be-bomber and Times²-wanna-be-bomber, and the Ft Hood Dr.-hoodlum-shooter were just mirages. We're actually safe as long as we can continue to spy on the French. Oui, oui!