…if it wasn’t for those meddlesome Jews:

I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office.  The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue.  I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country.  I agreed to chair the NIC to strengthen it and protect it against politicization, not to introduce it to efforts by a special interest group to assert control over it through a protracted political campaign.

Speaking as one of the aforementioned unscrupulous, passionate people, I offer this response to Freeman – and, indeed, everybody who shares in his, ah, particular ethical stance:

Geh kak afen yam. When I want moral judgments on my motivations I’ll get them from somebody who doesn’t think that the Chinese government should have stepped down on its dissidents harder, thanks.

Moe Lane

PS: Ed’s right, Gray Lady: you mucked up the reporting on this one something fierce. Didn’t want to admit that the President had a catastrophic error on this one, huh?

Crossposted to Moe Lane.