principal as a staff aide to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman David Boren, was so well-liked in Washington that even the 9/11 Commission was reluctant to offer pointed criticism of his gross misfeasance in his community role.

(At one hearing, commissioner Jamie Gorelick fawned over Tenet, noting with admiring wonderment what she said especially distinguished him; namely, that everyone in the Establishment simply called him George, and all automatically knew to whom they were referring. Amazing!)

Instead of affixing blame for 9/11, co-chair Lee Hamilton, Gorelick and others kept wringing their hands, complaining that no one was in charge of the intelligence community. True enough, but that was by no means solely due to the CIAs two-hat-director responsible for both analysis and covert operations.

It was much more a case of GeorgeTenet showing off the bureaucratic skills he had learned as a Capitol Hill aide, ingratiating himself with the powerful and never putting them in an uncomfortable situation.



You dont insinuate yourself into top jobs in Washington, or get to stay in them, by knocking important noses out of joint, no matter how badly such disfigurement is needed. No one ever needed plastic surgery after an encounter with George Tenet.

On July 22, 2004, the day the 9/11 report was released, I had been asked to comment on it immediately at the BBCs studio in Washington. After expressing amazement at the reports bizarre bottom line, that the calamity seemed to be no ones fault, I emerged from the studio and promptly bumped into two commissioners, Jamie Gorelick and Slade Gorton. They