Wednesday, December 17, 2008

George Tenet, as played by Mel Gibson?

Sounds like it:
I just picked up Patrick Tyler's forthcoming book, A World of Trouble, about America's tortured relations with the Middle East, and the prologue contains this whopper of a scene, one that is quite devastating, if true: An enraged George Tenet, drunk on scotch, flailing about Prince Bandar's Riyadh pool, screaming about the Bush Administration officials who were just then trying to pin the Iraq WMD fiasco on him:
A servant appeared with a bottle. Tenet knocked back some of the scotch. Then some more. They watched with concern. He drained half the bottle in a few minutes.

"They're setting me up. The bastards are setting me up," Tenet said, but "I am not going to take the hit."
And then this:

"According to one witness, he mocked the neoconservatives in the Bush administration and their alignment with the rlght wing of Israel's political establishment, referring to them with exaxperation as, "the Jews."

Although I haven't read the book and don't know the source, I'm going to say it's a slam dunk case that George Tenet is an anti-Semite.

Asshole.

2 comments:

  1. You might want to read this before you jump to conclusions:

    George Tenet has issued a statement in response to Patrick Tyler's false allegations. It can be seen here:

    http://georgejtenet.com/TylerStatement.html

    In addition, Prince Bandar has also issued a statement today through a spokesman. It can be seen here:

    http://georgejtenet.com/BANDARSTATEMENT.html

    Abe Foxman of the ADL has also sent a reaction to The Atlantic

    A link to his statement is here:

    http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/12/foxman_to_tenets_rescue.php

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  2. I think that jumping to the conclusion that George Tenet is an anti-Semite based on one sketchy report is fair enough for the man who sent several thousand Americans and several hundred thousand Iraqis to their deaths based similarly sketchy information that he called a "slam dunk".

    What's fair is fair.

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