"Remarkable" I can see, and even "Great" (though how "great" can you be, when you've forever got to stay on the run, in hiding, or get swatted down). I guess you could say the same about Hitler, Mao or Stalin.

But "admirable"?

Assign this guy to Islamabad. Permanently.

He's not anonymous anymore.

I saw this turkey on the tube this morning. While I agree with the above assessment of him, he made a couple of points worth looking at more closely.

His thoughts on Israel are worth considering. What he is saying is that our alliance with Israel is what puts in us in a war to the knife with people like his buddy Bin Laden. On this, he and I agree: the difference between us is that he considers this a bad thing. It is not, and the existence of Israel gives our long-term policy a short-term rationalization.

It's not just the oil. We need to keep the Hajjis weak and divided until they either join world civilization or are themselves ground to powder. We do this not for Israel, but for ourselves and for all humanity, and, most of all, for the Hajjis themselves.

We don't know how the dice are going to fall, as the old song goes, but we are going to keep fighting for our country and we believe that we will win. Without Israel we would be tempted to do a Europe and just back away from the challenge.

I read somewhere that during the Cold War Sovietologists in intelligence often became seduced by the objects of their study simply through identification with them as their growing knowledge produced a psychological intimacy. I suspect Michael's been seduced and his advice questionable. Rack him up with Michael Moore, Soros, Vidal etc.

Did you miss the fact that he wanted to kill Bin Laden in the desert of Afganastan in the late 90's and the Administration stopped him, and took him off the Bin Laden task force? He has repeated time and time again not to underestimate Bin Laden for he is patient, and plans well. But we had an administration that doesn't listen to CIA Intelligence, because it is vetted, and too slow. Well the RIA (Rummy Intelligence Agency) hasn't been very effective. Meanwhile Bin Laden has made us look like fools, teamed with the fool from Texas they have started their own war of idioligy, and we are funding it. All this while destroying years of US diplomacy and turned the world against the US. Wake up, Mr Scheuer is not the enemy here, and he has a clear message, amybe we should be listening this time!

John Wilkes Booth changed the course of history. So did Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan.

I don't think anyone would call them 'great men'.

If you want to join Mr Scheuer in defining great to mean achieved a high body count, go right ahead.

But plenty of us are going to disagree with you.

Coming to a theatre near you... Oliver Stone's "Osama the Great"

Dan:

What's left of al Qaeda now that Rummy's done?

I saw this interview last night on MSNBC - the guy was like an excited high school geek, giving his book report to Tim Russert.

"Yes, sir!" "No, sir!" "I love the CIA, sir!"