Re: Awesome Article

Personally… I don’t believe anything that comes out of the TV tube anymore. Newspapers, are more or less the same thing. Thank God for the internet. Without the internet we would be in full Nazi-propaganda swing right now with 95% of public approval. And that is WITHOUT even THINKING of being paranoid…
But, hey… all I know is that we have a …”darn good intelligence...”. THANK GOD for that! Can you imagine where we would be without - AT LEAST - that?
The following article explains better than my words could.

NL

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"President's intelligence a step below excellent"

By Dave Addis, The Virginian-Pilot

Critics gnashed their teeth again Monday when President Bush, defending his State of the Union claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy nuclear material in Africa, described the intelligence he receives on such matters as "darn good."

Just how good is "darn good"? Is it good enough to go to war over? Or is "darn good" just a step below the level of certainty we'd prefer in such matters?

Is "darn good" higher or lower on the intelligence scale than "really swell"? Is it better or worse than "totally awesome"?

Those darned left-wing critics. Once again, they assumed that the president was lapsing into back-country Texas slang, like he did two weeks ago with the famous "bring 'em on" taunt, the one that made it sound as if he was daring Iraqi guerrilla fighters to step up their attacks on our troops.

But "darn good" isn't a simple Bush-country, behind-the-barn malapropism. No sirree. "Darn good" is a formal, identifiable step on a carefully thought-out, four-step intelligence evaluation scale that is employed by the CIA, the NSA, the Department of Defense and the Texas Highway Patrol.

It's sort of like the color-wheel alert system that tells us how scared we should be every day. It works like this:

Level 1, "Most Excellent": This is Grade A, top-of-the-line intelligence, which means that we captured it on video surveillance tape, like they use down at the 7-Eleven. Unless the people we've taped are wearing fake beards or mustaches, this level of intelligence is beyond question.

Level 2, "Darn Good": This is high-grade intelligence that we've gotten from normally reliable sources such as the British Secret Service or the op-ed page of The Akron Beacon-Journal. The Saddam-Africa-nuke evidence was from the Brits. Perhaps we should have been more skeptical when their espionage source reported that the materials for Saddam's nuclear cocktail should be "shaken, not stirred."

Level 3, "Pretty Decent": This is intelligence that's not quite up to snuff for a State of the Union address, but can be slipped into a speech for a fund-raiser in any state that borders the Mississippi River.

Level 4, "Stuff We Hope is True": These are intelligence reports culled from such critical sources as Tom Clancy novels, Sylvester Stallone movies or "Imus in the Morning." Nothing we would want to be linked to directly, mind you, but an effective psy-ops weapon when leaked to Rush Limbaugh in the guise of "breaking news."

So, as you can see, that "darn good" intelligence report was not just a case of the president talking through his 10-gallon Texas hat. When this fella says he just had a "darn good" plate of meatloaf, or a "darn good" morning jog, or a "darn good" intelligence briefing, you can take it to the bank. (But, preferably, not one of his brother Neil's banks.)

Now, if we just had a "darn good" idea where Osama bin Laden is hiding, or where Saddam is hunkered down, or where we could find all those chemical/germ cannons that supposedly could be deployed on 45 minutes' notice, we'd have a "darn good" reason to believe that our intelligence was "darn good" enough for us to make some "darn good" decisions.

As a "darn good" patriotic-type person, I'm hoping that we're not led to analyze the whole affair someday and have nothing left to say but, "Oh, f**k."




Contact Dave at dave.addis@cox.net
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