Here are my observations and opinions on some items in the news.
GINA HASPEL – Perhaps you never heard of her, but you will be hearing her name ad infinitum this week. She faces the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday in her confirmation hearing to become the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Gina Haspel is up for confirmation as CIA director this week. (CIA photo)
As I warned here on two previous occasions, Haspel will face tough questioning; primarily around her knowledge or involvement of torture by the agency.
She was cleared of charges surrounding the issue of torture in 2011 by President Obama’s Deputy CIA Director Michael Morrell. And when former Attorney General Eric Holder assigned special counsel John Durham to investigate the Agency’s interrogation program, no criminal charges were brought forward.
Obama’s Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has indicated that he was glad to see her as the first woman to head the CIA.
Haspel began her 33-year career as a case officer in Africa and has served around the world before becoming deputy director in 2017. She is likely to become the first CIA officer to work her way up to the directorship in five decades. Previous holders of the directorship have often been appointed.
But don’t expect that support and experience to go very far on Wednesday. And her inquisition won’t be by Democrats exclusively. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) will, no doubt, take shots at her.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2020, often speaks passionately of equal rights for women, but don’t look for her to give Haspel any space, because she doesn’t conform to liberal ideology.
While the Democrat resistance force will be out for blood, as it was during Mike Pompeo’s confirmation, she should be confirmed in the end. I no longer believe the Senate should be known as ‘the world’s greatest deliberative body.’
2016 ELECTION NO FLUKE – Longtime readers may recognize the name of Selena Zito, a real journalist, who covered the 2016 political scene from rural America. I have mentioned her musings from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin.
Zito and Brad Todd have co-authored a new book, “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics” after interviewing some 2,000 Trump voters from places like Wilkes-Barre and Erie, Pennsylvania, Jefferson, Ohio and Bristol, Wisconsin.
Zito and Todd explain how the political experts got it wrong and point it out that they are still getting things wrong.
“When explaining the Trump voter, the media offers portraits of isolated, uneducated, working-class rubes, who are driven by anger, race and nationalism,” says Zito, “And while the media obsesses over the future demise of the president, they aren’t pausing to consider the strength and durability of the coalition that swept him into office.”
ON THE SUBJECT OF OHIO – If you didn’t watch President Trump’s televised roundtable with small business operators and steel workers on Saturday, you missed the comeback stories of a number of rural Ohioans. Average Americans for sure.
People who were laid off, worked part-time jobs, and struggled to hold on their homes. People who thanked the president for the tax cut that put a couple hundred more bucks in their pocket. People who received post tax cut bonuses that allowed them to take cross-country vacations or set up a college education fund. And business owners who are now able to grow their businesses, buy equipment and hire additional employees.
I wondered how many Democrats watched the testimonials. They need to worry about the mid-terms.
REPUBLICANS HAVE SLIGHT LEADS over Democrat Senate incumbents in West Virginia, North Dakota, Indiana, Montana and Missouri, according to the Morning Consult Poll. In Florida, outgoing Governor Rick Scott is deadlocked with Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson. Democrat Senators Casey (Pennsylvania), Brown (Ohio) and Kaine (Virginia) have slight leads in their races.Polls – if you can believe them – have Democrats vying for the House with 3 to 8 percent leads over Republican candidates.
FREE JOURNALISM – Readers of this blog get it sent to their e-mail address free of charge, but there’s a move by those using the Internet to charge for their reporting and opinions.
Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle heard it from her readers when she left Bloomberg for the Post, where the content of its writers goes behind a subscriber paywall. “Was I so arrogant as to think they ought to pay for the privilege of reading me?” she wrote.
McArdle believes that “sooner or later, virtually everyone in the industry is going to put his or her content behind a subscription wall.”
Those who visit this site, however, will note above the subscription sign-up form on the right, that it is “free.”
