There are more hearings with Petraeus and Crocker today?? Didn’t we solve the war in Iraq yesterday?? It’s 9/11! We wanted to observe like a day-long moment of silence but apparently we’re supposed to be paying attention to this congress stuff. Anyway — Biden is being a dick, like usual. But not really that blowhardy! Chris Dodd was at Walter Reed talking to a kid who lost an eye… apparently yesterday was for Petraeus to give his report, by him, that he wrote, about how things are improving, slowly, and today is for Democrats with big hair to shout abuse at him. Then the war will go on forever and ever and ever until President Socks Clinton announces that Iraq is stable and we can retreat to our huge permanent military base there. To watch for today: MORE »

We’re trying to watch the War Czar’s confirmation hearing (since when do you confirm a czar?), but for the last fifteen or twenty minutes it’s been Hillary Clinton monologuing on Iraq, then saying “and I hope you’d agree, General.” MORE »

This hearing is fucking ridiculous. We said it before: Alberto Gonzales is, somehow, against all odds, the single smuggest asshole in this administration. Despite also being dumber, probably, than everyone but Paul Wolfowitz. MORE »

Joe Biden has just the ticket to solving this whole War in Iraq mess: a three-week series of bipartisan hand wringing hearings! Featuring testimony from dozens of people whose ideas about the way forward in Iraq we’ve all heard and read a thousand times! With Condi Rice! And so, so many more… MORE »

Robert “I’m Not Rumsfeld” Gates has been almost officially put in charge of a big stinking mess. The Senate committee gave the “former” CIA spook and Iran-Contra crook a unanimous vote and now the full Senate will overwhelmingly vote for him. Good luck, bro. MORE »

Ok, the Gates confirmation hearings are boring as hell. Gates is a total sycophant, and is telling the committee whatever they want to hear. Senator Reed looks as hungover as we are. Gates is folksy as hell. MORE »

Commitee chairman Jim Sensenbrenner calls witnesses to decide once and for all if Governors are “cooler” than Congressmen. (Getty) MORE »

Aaaand that’s it. What did we learn from the open portion of the Hayden confirmation hearing?

Senators with gray hair are boring. Brunettes with neat parts? Classy. Smooth.

Good luck to anyone who’ll try to get actual news from those 8 hours of babbling. Our final thoughts, after the jump.

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4:26 — Wyden: “This summer you were the public relations frontman for the warrantless wiretapping program, today you say you want to keep the CIA out of the news.”

BURN! Aww, Wyden’s so cute. Problem with overclassification, he says. “Alcoholic beverage preferences of some politicians gets classified.” Whoa, really? Whose? Kennedy’s a whiskey guy, we’re guessing Snowe likes a stiff gin and tonic.

They’re kicking Wyden off now. He is so gonna cry. Back to Levin? Oy.

4:18 — It’s the lightening round! Back to Levin! Five minutes! How ’bout torture? How ’bout FISA? How ’bout “content”? “Content” means “everything between ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye.’” So terrorists can really trip them up by starting conversations with “Wuzzzuuuuuupppp” and finishing with “Catch you on the flip side.”

OH MY GOD WE CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE. WE ALL KNOW YOU’RE GOING TO CONFIRM THE SONUVABITCH. He could reveal that he routinely dissects puppies for sexual pleasure and slept with the chairman’s wife, and Levin and Bayh would still be asking him how he thinks they should re-write FISA to do whatever the fuck they’re already doing.

Well, at least Levin brought up Scooter Libby for no reason. Our ears perked up, at least. Back to Wyden!

4:10 — Back to regular order! Back to Bond! Everyone only gets five minutes! But Linus Wyden was promised two more 20-minute questioning periods! Ha ha, Wyden, no one likes you!

4:02 — Hayden’s entire testimony: “You’re not afraid to call a ball a strike on the back of the inside plate when it’s the bottom of the 9th and you’re up by three runs and you hear the two-minute warning and your linebacker’s got a torn ACL and your kicker’s in the penalty box and the line judge gives you a yellow card and…”

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3:10 — Hayden: “if I had no lawful authority to do something that needed to be done to protect this country, of course I would do it.”

Russ: “Can you explain to me why we even need to pass laws in this Congress?” if the Pres is going to get all Article 2 on us. Well, Russ, uh, no. Have you been paying attention? TIME OF WAR.

We aren’t liveblogging that much because Feingold actually asked interesting questions. Hayden didn’t answer them, but they were interesting questions. And now we’re on to Chambliss, so BRING ON THE CRAZY!

3:00– Yes! Russ “See Ya!” Feingold! The program is illegal, the President mislead the country! And WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL US? “What kind of CIA director will he be? Will General Hayden follow the law?” You could ask him, Russ, he’s sitting right there.

Hayden — You have to look at the context in which I lied. “I knew in my own heart and mind that we were not talking about domestic-to-domestic.” But his voice failed to make that distinction. “I think that was the speech where I talked about Osama bin Laden traveling from Niagra Falls to New York.” OSAMA BIN LADEN HAS DEVELOPED BARREL TECHNOLOGY. Why would Hayden want to remind anyone of that speech? It’s the stupidest hypothetical ever. Seriously. And we already heard the “WILL YOU CALL RUMMY BACK” bit earlier.

2:40 — Don’t crowd the ball! Focus on the scoreboard! No “I” in team! A lot of it is attitudinal! Should the head of the CIA be a complete idiot? Does that make their lack of oversight more or less dangerous? We usedta think “less,” but complete idiots have demonstrated an alarming ability to fuck things up a lot these last couple years.

“For every 10 analysts with fewer than four years service, we only have one experiences analysts with between 10 and 14 years service.” No one in the CIA knows what the the hell they’re doing.

We are cheering ourselves up by watching this.

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12:56 — First off: We shoud’ve been liveblogging the Gay Marriage debate instead. Secondly: Feinstein’s mic was left open long enough for us to hear her say, annoyedly, “He didn’t answer anything.” See ya at 1:30.

12:51 — The Feinstein questioning:

12:50 — So remember when Negroponte said people in secret prisons will remain there until the end of this open-ended War on Terror?

Hayden — Closed session.

How will we get good intelligence out of people who’ve been in secret prisons for 5 years?

Hayden — Closed session.

Waterboarding — hot or not?

Hayden — Closed session.

DoJ give you guys any new torture advice?

Hayden — Closed session.

Remember when the Inspector General said you guys were torturing people? Do you agree?

Hayden — Closed session.

Iran — you think they’re gonna get nukes pretty soon?

Hayden — Closed session. Oh, by the way, we are totally confident about our Iran intelligence. Yeah, it’s totally different from the Iraq thing. We, uh, learned lessons. Lessons were learned. Whoo boy, those lessons.

12:42 — Will you make a commitment that all the top officers at the CIA will be intelligence workers? Or something like that. Seems like an obvious yes. As CIA officials, they will be, by definition, intelligence officials. Right?

Hayden is bored and hungry. SO ARE WE.

He brought the question to NSA lawyers, three guys he trusts, with “a real comfort level,” that this was within the President’s authority. “They talked to me about Article 2.” Boy, that Article 2 — we should look that one up. Sounds like an exciting one.

Feinstein pushing hard on the “Everyone should follow FISA, and if you would just TELL US WHAT YOU WANT US TO CHANGE ABOUT FISA so you can legally keep doing what you’re currently doing illegally, we’re be MORE THAN HAPPY TO CHANGE IT. GET US OFF THE HOOK, HERE GUYS. WE DON’T WANT TO OVERSEE YOU! There’s a totally awesome gay marriage debate going on in the Senate right now that we’re missing ’cause of this bullshit.

“I want to ask you some questions about the fourth amendment.” She’s reading it to him! We thought he might do a double-take and drop his monocle when he heard the end of it. She should’ve said “SPOILER ALERT!” beforehand.

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11:41 — DeWine reminds us of a suburban bank branch manager. He talks kinda like Jimmy Stewart, though. He is reading his History Day presentation on “The CIA.”

“Do you agree that we need to be more creative and risk-taking?” Oy, this is bullshit.

“The culture of the Agency was such that this baby will be strangled in the crib.” We forgot what he’s talking about, but that’s a really creepy metaphor.

The Jimmy Stewart thing is bugging us. “In th-th-that light, lemme ask you a question… uhhhhh…. ehhhh…. Ah-ah-ah… are you gonna shut down the Savings and Loan?”

We’ve considered turning this off and putting in The Philadelphia Story.

11:32 — Levin: Will you be nice to detainees? How bout that Geneva Convention?
Hayden: Uh… not really.
Levin: Convention against torture?
Hayden: Detainee Treatment Act.
Levin: Yeah, but that’s for the DoD. Not the CIA.
Hayden: So it is, yes.
Levin: Well, my time’s up.

11:29 — Hayden: “I was uncomfortable.” W/ DoD’s personal intelligence analysis study group and their Al-Qaeda-Iraq link. Which leads to “I got three great kids.”

Holy shit he just threatened to build up a dossier on his KIDS! HE WILL PROVE CONCLUSIVELY A HAYDEN’S KIDS-SADDAM HUSSEIN LINK.

Levin: Will you describe the difference between the bad way to do things and the way you will do things? Hayden: “18 years of Catholic education, I know a lot about deductive reasoning.”

“What happens when induction meets deduction, Senator?” Two great tastes that taste great together.

Levin: Did you have a disagreement with the Defense Secretary? By the way, you’re wearing a uniform.
Hayden: DoD put my testimony on their website. NSA didn’t. “My solution was something like the founding fathers’.” Own slaves, shoot English people, fight Indians. Right?

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10:16 — VERY SHORT RECESS. Wow, that was exciting. Check back for more, once the actual questioning starts. MORE »