Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Has George Tenet ever seen The Dunk?
(Correction: At the time of writing this...I wasn't aware that Tenet ever personally admitted using the "slam dunk" line but somehow - like a klutz - I missed this link: "Those were the two dumbest words I ever said," Tenet said in a speech at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania.)
As a diehard Knicks fan it hurt too much to have Michael Jordan's picture grace the top of my blog during the Thanksgiving holiday (even though it was a picture of M.J. missing a dunk, it still bugged me).
So - for most Knicks fans - this is The Dunk:
That's John Starks, a guy that had to claw his way into the NBA with limited talents but ferocious emotions which sometimes hurt the team but usually entertained the fans, dunking over Michael Jordan and most of the rest of his Chicago Bulls teammates in a play-off game the Knicks won (though the series...forget it...it's been twelve years and it still hurts to think about what happened).
Anyway...back to Mr. Slam Dunk: Former CIA director George Tenet.
Bob Woodward wrote in his "Plan of Attack" that Tenet went to as many Georgetown Hoyas basketball games as he could attend which means that he's probably a season ticket holder these days.
A few months before Bob's book came out, in January of 2004, while he still headed up the Central Intelligence Agency, Tenet penned a little column for Georgetown Univerity's newspaper called "Georgetown Source of Director's Intelligence." Here's a line about b-ball:
"I was during my college years and remain today a diehard Hoya basketball fan and am so proud of my friend Craig Esherick's leadership."
So at least Woodward didn't make that part up.
But, since it's a holiday, I figure this post will end on a light note.
Tenet's an interesting figure cause - pretty much - both sides hate him (hell...Jeff Gannon's even got admirers though the poor blogger gets less comments than any other I've ever seen), so here's a response to Tenet's column that might tickle both sides (oh yeah...and if you went to the link to the Georgetown paper you'd see that his short bio refers to "controversy surrounding the intelligence reports on Iraqi weapons"...poor guy's alma mater even nail him as the Bush Administration's fall guy), a letter to the editor asking, "Do the CIA and Men's Basketball Share Strategy?"
George Tenet writes that he is "so proud of ... Craig Esherick's leadership" of our basketball team, which has been sputtering in decline. Tenet also presides over a CIA sputtering in decline, haplessly missing al Qaeda's attacks on our embassies and on Sept. 11, 2001, letting the obviously bogus Niger yellow-cake story go into President Bush's State of the Union Address, and allowing confidence in the CIA to be shaken by numerous reports that the intelligence on Iraq was politicized. Coincidence, or did these Hoyas learn the same sort of leadership?
Happy T-Day, all.
|
