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The Best Intelligence Money Can Buy
Hi there folks, this is William DeWitt Jr.,
lead
owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, talking to you from this great hotel
just a hop, skip and a jump from Capitol Hill, where I'm taking a ceremonial
vacation now that baseball season is over. Now you can call me William, or
you can call me Willy, and if you know me real well, you can even call me
Billy. But the one thing I hope you won't forget to call me is proud member
of the President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board. That's PFIAB in bureaucrat talk.
Now the
PFIAB, just like it says on
the president's own personal web site, is supposed to provide
"advice to the President
concerning the quality and adequacy of intelligence collection, of analysis
and estimates, of counterintelligence, and of other intelligence
activities." It even goes on to say that we're supposed to be advising him
on the legality of foreign intelligence activities.
Now just
how the heck am I supposed to do that? I don't know a dang thing about
intelligence. The only thing I can say for sure about my foreign
intelligence is that those Cubans make mighty fine ball players.
But one
thing I do know a lot about is fund-raising. Hell, I'm a
Ranger in Uncle W's Army, and a big one, too. I've thrown over 300K into
the president's pot, so I guess he thinks I'm pretty darn smart. And I know
my baseball, too. As a matter of fact, I used to be
partners with old
George back when he was getting ready to make his fortune on the Texas
Rangers. I'm telling you, that boy done real good for himself.
Hold on,
now. I'll bet some of you naysayers are getting ready to say "Darn that
George Bush. All he does is go around appointing his cronies to these jobs
whether they know a dang thing or not". Let me be the first to say that this
is a particularly distorted piece of cow hockey. At the same time he
reappointed me, he also gave the nod to former Commerce secretary Don Evans
and Texas oilman Ray Hunt. They both threw 100K+ into the coffers, but only
Evans could be called a true crony. George and Ray weren't really all that
close, except for...
Dang it
to hell! Bad example! Why don't you naysayers just mind your own business.
The main point is that out of twelve appointees, there were
only five more
who were campaign contributors, maybe six, which means that three members
must have gotten on because they know something. I guess.
Besides,
who are we to second guess the president on what he should do with his
foreign intelligence? It's just a ceremonial job. Who gives a hoot about
that stuff, anyhow?
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