Gee, Mr. Tenet, thanks for telling us now

As it turns out, the people who were absolutely, totally, completely right about the Iraq debacle at the very beginning are interested to read George Tenet's "shocking" revelation. Against my better judgment, I tuned in to watch Larry King and hear Tenet try to justify torture enhanced interrogation techniques. He pretty much said the same things he said on 60 Minutes, except he was less combative.

I have yet to read Tenet's book (I'll probably check it out at the library), but none of it is news to Georgie Anne Geyer.

Look, look! The very man who oversaw American intelligence during this entire disastrous period of planning, plotting and going to a hypothetical war in that remote country worlds away has now come out to "reveal" how much of everything was false.

But in truth, the Tenet book, "At the Center of the Storm," is old stuff. It only confirms what culture-savvy journalists like Arnaud de Borchgrave of United Press International, Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune, Trudy Rubin of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker and, modestly, yours truly, were writing even a year before the war started.

The media as a whole has gotten a well-deserved thrashing because so many journalists fancied themselves as press officers for Bushco. However, let's not forget the handful of principled reporters who were unafraid to tell the truth.

Meanwhile, Pentagon whistleblower Karen Kwiatkowski has just one question for the guy.

But never fear. Tenet has one, unlikely defender: Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com. Raimondo thinks we should refocus the blame where it belongs: on Bushco and the neocon goons. He sees Tenet as a patriot who did the best he could to resist the administration's push to war. (Of course maybe, just maybe, the article is a spoof. At least I hope it's a spoof.)

And what do Tenet's former co-workers have to say about all this? Larry Johnson and friends have already said their piece. Now, one of the letter's co-signers, Ray McGovern, adds more.

As we had learned early in our careers, if you consistently tell it like it is, you are certain to make enemies. Those enjoying universal popularity are ipso facto suspect of perfecting the political art of compromise-shading this and shaving that. However useful this may be on the Hill, it sounds the death knell for intelligence analysis.

They REALLY don't like this guy, do they?