The Daily Background

Tony Snow’s first day is Monday. Expect a couple of articles on how that went, and maybe some columns with reporters first impressions. I’ll write about it if anything interesting happens.

Also, President Bush is expected to announce the formal nomination of General Michael Hayden, an extremely controversial nominee for the job of CIA Director. Expect several interesting soundbites from congressmen and analysis. I’ll be linking to articles as they’re written, and I might pick away at the President’s nomination speech if its any good any bad.

Although I jokingly said that Hayden was a super excellent choice of the President and endorsed him earlier today, the exact opposite is true. I would not be surprised if this turned into something like the Dubai-debackle. Moderate Republicans may going to rebel, as are probably all Democrats (except for Lieberman et al).

Feingold has come out against the nomination already because Hayden was one of the chief engineers of everybody’s favorite unconstitutional NSA program, and word is that Republican Senator Specter is looking forward to be able to confront Hayden over the program. Apparently Hayden acted like a complete asshat to Specter, and so Specter is probably going to make the nomination hearings tense to say the least.

In a few more days, I’ll lay out the odds on Hayden being confirmed, and update them as this story progresses.

Filed under: NSA Wiretaps, Z-TDB Blog