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 »

Happy Hayden Confirmation Day! We, the unwashed masses, shall get the sanitized, boring hearing, and we’ll like it, dammit, while the cool kids on the intelligence committee will hold the real one in a locked room with no lights on, whispering all their super top secret questions. Yeah, the guy’s a lock. Go democracy! It’s an inspiring tale, really, that a guy who can’t remember the entirety of the fourth amendment and who’s personally responsible for an illegal domestic spying program that sidesteps congressional oversight completely can win the support of said congress with a few well-timed secret briefings. You exercise those powers, Senate! MORE »

• Senate approves fences and barriers for the southern border as well as restrictions for the guest-worker program. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.): “Good fences make good neighbors. Fences don’t make bad neighbors.” [WP, NYT, WSJ]
• New details about Gen. Michael Hayden’s “highly classified world” are “forcing lawmakers to reexamine a man many of them have known for years”; last-minute briefings to lawmakers on the Intelligence Committees “have smoothed what might have been a contentious path toward confirmation” and a declassified list shows select members were briefed 30 times on surveillance programs since 9/11. [WP, NYT, NYT, USAT, USAT, WSJ]
• Tuesday’s election results may preview a “brewing unrest that could threaten incumbents of both parties in the November elections”; a “broader disaffection” is noted. [WP, NYT]
• Bush echoes past campaign themes in speech at RNC fundraiser: “We are the party of the future, and our candidates will be running against the party of the past — a party that offers no new ideas like the Republican Party, a party that can only offer opposition.” [NYT]
• Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) says Bush is not appropriately funding the National Guard order: “A lot are going to be sitting in cars that don’t run and planes that don’t take off.” [USAT]
• House ethics committee opens investigations of Reps. Robert Ney (R-Ohio), William Jefferson (D-La.), and Randy Cunningham (R-Calif.). [WP, NYT]
• Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman are bidding for a multibillion-dollar contract to provide border security. [NYT]

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• Reliable Source: The last episode of the West Wing was filled with mistakes. . . Ted Olson will defend Michael Skakel. . . Michael Hayden spotted at the Bombay Club. . . Andy Card and his family seen at Maggiano’s Little Italy in Tysons Corner. [WP]
• Heard on the Hill: McCain jokes that Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) was a bastard child. . . Congress will consider naming Clinton’s birthplace as a National Historic Site. [Roll Call]
• Cindy Adams: Pataki will fundraise for Jeanine Pirro. [NYP]
• Page Six: Chelsea took Hillary to “The Pajama Game” for Mother’s Day. [NYP]

It’s Friday! It’s a beautiful day! After yesterday’s torrential rain, the sun is out, the birds are chirping, the weekend beckons, and you’re still sitting in your office wasting your life away. That would make anyone turn mean, right? That’s why we at Wonkette provide to you the best in all-purpose political meanness every week. But on Fridays, we outsource the meanness to Editorial Cartoon Expert the Comics Curmudgeon, who, this week, has culled the meanest of the mean from Today’s Cartoons and dissected them in the name of science.

After the jump, the tears of a VPOTUS, dope-smokin’ presidents, and a certain congresswoman we know quite well.

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• Rep. Rahm Emanuel, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, hurls expletives at Dean over election strategy; Emanuel fears Dean is spending too much money too soon: “This is a historic opportunity, and we can’t squander it.” [WP, NYT]
• The NSA is “amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime”; calls made by tens of millions of Americans are logged. [USAT]
• Bush is losing support among his base at a “rapid” clip; Gallup registers “a 13-percentage-point drop in Republican support for Bush in the past couple of weeks.” [WP]
• Republicans seek to gain upper-hand on energy issues with a “whole series” of measures. [WSJ]
• National issues are shaping local races this year; “Republicans are swimming against a national tide of voter unrest.” [WSJ]
• House passes $70B tax package mostly along party lines, 244 to 185. [WP, NYT, USAT]
• National Archives violated rules when White House lawyers looked at John Roberts‘ files; papers on affirmative action are missing. [WP]

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• Congressional Republicans propose five-year, $70B tax bill; the main component is the extension of tax rates on capital gains and dividends. [WP, WSJ, NYT]
• Bush’s “political strength continues to dissipate,” according to fresh CBS/NYT poll; his “overall job approval rating hit another new low, 31 percent, tying the low point of his father in July 1992, four months before the elder Mr. Bush lost his bid for a second term.” [NYT]
• Centrist Democrats say the party “should concentrate on charting alternative policies for fighting terrorism and succeeding in Iraq” instead of launching investigations of Bush’s mistakes. [WP]
• Rumsfeld, backing selection of Hayden to head the CIA, denies a power play is underway; nomination seen as setting “the stage for new wrangling with the Pentagon.” [WP, NYT]
• Bush stands by Monday deadline for Medicare program; plan is “emerging as a surprise plus for Republicans in a rocky election season.” [WP, NYT, USAT]
• GOP’s ‘06 roster features three African-American candidates running for statewide offices. Ken Mehlman: “We’ve gone from a model of outreach to a model of inclusion. Outreach is a top-down approach. Inclusion says, ‘Let’s find some really good people and encourage them to run for office.’” [WP]
• Ethics issue is “two-edged sword” for Democrats. [USAT]
• House Republicans are still struggling to agree on ‘07 budget. [WSJ]
• Pro-immigration groups aim to register 1M new voters by November. [WP]