From CQ. Jeff Stein March 7 2006

Negroponte Makes the Most of His Post as Minister Without Portfolio

On many a workday lunchtime, the nominal boss of U.S. intelligence, John D. Negroponte, can be found at a private club in downtown Washington, getting a massage, taking a swim, and having lunch, followed by a good cigar and a perusal of the daily papers in the club’s library.

“He spends three hours there [every] Monday through Friday,” gripes a senior counterterrorism official, noting that the former ambassador has a security detail sitting outside all that time in chase cars. Others say they’ve seen the Director of National Intelligence at the University Club, a 100-year-old mansion-like redoubt of dark oak panels and high ceilings a few blocks from the White House, only “several” times a week.

Surely Negroponte needs a comfort zone, forced as he is to spends hours in the witness chair in front of congressional committees, fielding hot potatoes on subjects over which he has no control — the NSA’s warrantless surveillance, domestic spying by secret military intelligence units, paying newspapers in Iraq to run pro-U.S. stories.

Lacking control must be a new experience for Negroponte. In the 1980s he was ambassador to Honduras, base camp for U.S.-backed attacks on left-wing Nicaragua. More recently, he was the U.S. proconsul in Baghdad. Negroponte’s reputation as a very demanding boss, in fact, preceded him to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), where aides fretted at the prospect of 15-hour days and memos thrown back in their faces by this disciple of Henry A. Kissinger.

But there seems to be a new, relaxed John Negroponte. And some close observers think they know why.

He’s figured out the job. Which is to say, he really doesn’t have much control over the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

So why not hang at the University Club?

Negroponte spokesman Carl Kroft takes serious issue with that portrayal.

“He’s the hardest working person in U.S. intelligence,” Kroft said. “He’s hard at work from the early hours of the morning to late every night. The job never ends.”

On the Hot Seat

“We appointed you to be the person to (run) all intelligence,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., lectured Negroponte at a Feb. 28 hearing of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. (CQ Transcripts: Senate Select Intelligence Committee hearing, Feb. 28, 2006)

Feinstein asked Negroponte about “recent media reports [that] have spotlighted a number of activities that appear to be related to intelligence collection or covert action, but that well may be outside of the official intelligence community’s channels.

“For example,” Feinstein continued, “military databases of suspicious activity reports . . . by the (domestic military) counterintelligence field activity, or CIFA; and, secondly, a Pentagon program to secretly pay Iraqi newspapers to run pro-American articles.

“Were these activities subject to your approval and oversight?”

Negroponte’s answer was short-circuited by an unidentified voice, according to the CQ transcript, quite possibly his deputy, former Air Force general and NSA chief Michael Hayden.

“Ma’am, I don’t believe that either of those activities would fall into Mr. Negroponte’s area. They are Department of Defense programs, I believe.”

“Now, let me raise this problem then,” Feinstein continued.

“Now, I know how tough it is. But if you didn’t know and you didn’t give a go-ahead [to domestic military spying], it indicates to me that, for 85 percent of the budget, which is defense-related, that you’re not going to have the controls that you should have,” Feinstein said.

“You want to comment?”

Negroponte, who not long ago in Baghdad was dismissing senior military officers with the wave of his hand, had to be feeling an acute wave of heartburn.

The Director of National Intelligence was forced to concede that the U.S. intelligence activities Feinstein was asking him about had “not risen to the level of my office.” In any event, they came “under the direction of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence” — a pipsqueak, relatively speaking.

Negroponte said he “understood” that the Pentagon was doing an internal review of spying programs because of a congressional uproar.

“But will you get the results of that review?” Feinstein asked.

“Yes,” promised Negroponte, dismissed like a schoolboy, “I will get those results.”

How Many Divisions?

Washington’s conventional wisdom these days is that ODNI is a joke.

The main reason is that Negroponte’s group has little power over the Pentagon’s covert actions.

It’s not his fault. Congress set it up that way after Rumsfeld and company worked the rooms of the House and Senate office buildings.

The noted intelligence historian Lock K. Johnson worries that Negroponte could end up like the National Drug Czar, “with no real power” over U.S. spy agencies.

Or the Pope, whose political powers Josef Stalin dismissed with a laugh to worried aides: “The Pope? How many divisions has he got?”

Kroft, Negroponte’s spokesman, said in an e-mailed response to a question that his boss “determines and presents to the President the full U.S. National Intelligence Program budget.”

As for Negroponte’s lunches at the University Club, he responded, “As a matter of policy we do not discuss the Director of National Intelligence’s schedule.”

Backchannel Chatter

Fire when ready: Clark Kent Ervin, the former DHS Inspector General, is not going to make many friends — or maybe he will — with sentences like these from his forthcoming book, Open Target, an advance copy of which just arrived on SpyTalk’s desk: “From the very beginning, the Information Analysis (IA) unit of the Department of Homeland Security proved to be a bad, bad joke.” Ervin describes both understaffing and empty desks at DHS’s intelligence wing. Eventually, “word got around the tight-knit and hyper-status-conscious intelligence community that taking a job (there) was not” — his emphasis — “a career-enhancing move,” writes Ervin, a Texas protege of the Bush family. Wonder what President Bush thinks of that (our emphasis).

Landing more gently on the SpyTalk bookshelf recently: Analytic Culture in the U.S. Intelligence Community: An Ethnographic Study, an inside look at the people who connect the dots, by anthropologist Dr. Rob Johnson. This is of more than passing interest because it is published by the CIA’s own Center for the Study of Intelligence.

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This is most illuminating, given the Goss dismissal.

I reproduced the article here because my earlier attempt failed to link correctly and I wanted to be sure that TPMCafe readers got a chance to read it in its entirety.

In today's Froomkin (WaPo) you will find a charming description of the waste of time that is the White House Correspondents'Association Annual conclave.  

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Let me tell you a bit about my night. After exchanging brief pointless smalltalk with Tony Snow, Dan Bartlett and even George Clooney at the Newsweek pre-dinner party, I repaired to the ballroom where I found myself sitting next to -- of all people -- Kristen Silverberg.

Now you may not know who Kristen Silverberg is, but I've been following her movement through Bush's inner circle for quite a while now. First she was a campaign worker, then a young aide in the chief of staff's office, then a high-level policy adviser.

Silverberg was considered the White House's ultimate rising star, and she really caught my attention when -- after Karl Rove was promoted to deputy chief of staff and moved downstairs into an office just down the hall from the Oval -- Silverberg moved into the highly karmic second-floor space that he vacated, and that before him had been occupied by Hillary Clinton. (See my now out-of-date White House floorplan .)

Not long after that, however, she decided to follow Condoleeezza Rice to the State Department, where she now serves as assistant secretary for international organization affairs.

In pretty much any other circumstance, if I had a chance to talk to Kristen Silverberg, I would grill her about Bush's plans for Iran, or about her mentor Karl Rove, or on the inner workings of the White House.

But here she was sitting next to me as the guest of a Washington Post White House correspondent, and it wouldn't have been appropriate. Not to mention, she's sweet as pie. Heck, I was pushing the limits of propriety by introducing her to everyone at the table this way: "She's John Bolton's boss!!!"

We ended up talking about Karl Rove, but only in the most general terms. I noted that she might be Rove's protege, but that -- according to my wife, at least -- Rove is my greatest muse. (He does seem to inspire some of my finer columns .)

As a result, Silverberg very kindly offered to introduce me to my muse. I said I couldn't possibly. She insisted. And next thing I knew we were over at table 54, chatting with Rove himself.

In person, Rove was charming. He looked genuinely confused when I told him that the headline of my Friday's column had been " Rove Worrier ," a reference to his possibly imminent indictment in the CIA leak investigation.

And in fact, he didn't look the least bit worried.

The conversation quickly turned to the fact that he adores Silverberg and thoroughly grills every one of her potential suitors.

Of course, what I wanted to do was ask him: Why did he lie to journalists about not having been one of the people who leaked Valerie Plame's identity to Robert Novak? What exactly did he tell the grand jury last week? How does he feel about getting kicked across the hall into a windowless office? (He's moving into Michael Gerson's old digs.) Is there any serious chance of a detente with the press?

But this was not the time. Instead, I went back to my table with Silverberg, still not talking about Iran.

And not only had I gotten nothing useful out of Rove -- but now I was beholden to Silverberg.

As luck would have it, I was able to wipe that particular slate clean in short order. Silverberg kept eyeing actor James Denton, the hunky plumber from "Desperate Housewives," who was sitting a few tables away. I went over and persuaded him to come say hello. Silverberg was thrilled. And I was off the hook.

But what value did any of this have to my readers? Not much.

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Nobody said it better.

According to Robert A. George who wrote for HuffingtonPost as follows:

 Ironically, for two years in a row now, George W. Bush has recognized his own limitations when it comes to "performing" at this dinner. Last year, he gave it over to Laura for her hilarious "Desperate Housewives" schtick (which was so good that comic Cedric The Entertainer admitted he was going to have a tough time following). This year, the "Double-ya" bit was a great bit of theater. Indeed, he arguably stole a page from "The Colbert Report": He set himself up as his own comedic foil.

Stephen Bridges played "George W. Bush" in the same way that Stephen Colbert plays a pompous talk-show host named "Stephen Colbert" who interviews "real" people in politics. Bridges was successful, because he brought along a "real" person ready and willing to take part in the joke.

 

Hello?  The "real" people were there.  They sat there and fumed because Stephen Colbert "burned not singed" them.  Don't say Colbert does not translate  to the standup thing; just tell me you couldn't translate what Colbert said.  Then I'd understand why you think Steve Bridges played W the same way Colbert plays "The Colbert Report".

 

Yes, Bridges was good, in spite of the material he had to work with.

The genius that is Stephen Colbert is best appreciated in action. To that end please view the entire performance he gave at the White House Correspondents Dinner, Saturday night, April 29, 2006. Reading the transcript will not do it.

  Go to: http://starsorbis.com/

The tension Colbert creates in his audience is a big part of his success.  Colbert leaves no one untouched in a bravura performance that will not be ignored, despite the snubbing by the first couple as they left the dinner, nor the fear and trembling that seems to have affected the White House press corps that is waiting to see if the other shoe drops.  I can't wait to hear how Fox spins this, to paraphrase Colbert.

You may also see the complete "Bush Twin" performance by the president and Steven Bridges of SNL. The White House press corps seems to have taken umbrage at Colbert's skewering if Elizabeth Bumiller's column this morning in the NYTimes is any indication. She completely ignored Colbert's incredible performance. Can dish it out but can't take it, Liz?