The American Spectator

Just got the opening statement Gen. Hayden will deliver in his confirmation hearing today. As with any confirmation statement, it’s cautious. And it isn’t something that will discomfit the CIA bureaucrats. Money quotes:

Over the past few years, the Intelligence Community and CIA have taken an inordinate number of hits, some of them fair, many of them not. Yes, there have been failures, but there also have been many great successes.

…Internally, I would regard it as a leading part of my job to affirm and strengthen the excellence and pride of CIA’s workforce.

This is troubling on any number of levels. Have the failures been balanced by the successes? Hard to see how. “Strenghen the excellence and pride”? How about raising the standard of excellence?

Hayden will be confirmed. But he seems a very unlikely candidate to clean out the Langley version of the Augean Stables.