The Boston Herald was Right!

So, there I was seated at a stool at the old neighborhood bar drinking a beer and watching local news, which in the Boston area means sports and weather, a few people crashing cars into houses, a fire and some cutsie-poo info-tainment including stories not anywhere NEAR here (why do they even bother to call it LOCAL news?) before another 10 minutes of sports and weather. (Note to Capitalist media baron self: Create new regional cable channel, the New England Sports & Weather Channel)

Anyway, I saw the Jan. 5, 2008 issue laying there (or is it lying?) and thumbed through it... the usual tabloid crap that leaves guilty pleasure ink on your grubby calloused fingers and a numbing sensation in your booze addled brain... then... ah ha! The editorials!

One that caught my eye was by Deroy Murdock and the title was, "Red alert on a Romney adviser" and it was a complaint that his campaign staff included a former CIA official/executive/agent/spook, one J. Cofer Black. (Note to creepy right-wing self: Change name to first initial and middle name ala J. Edger Hoover, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy) Black's counter-terrorism credentials sure smell impressive on first sniff, but the editorial lays the blame for the non-watch listing of 2 of the 9-11 suicide commandos and other bureaucratic bungles... OK, it was true enough, Newt Romney thinks he knows how to pick `em, but as the final line of the editorial stated: "This should keep Republican primary voters awake at night."

UPDATE: I dug up the article by Mark Hemingway in the Dec. 18, 2006 issue of The Weekly Standard my father sent me... titled, "Warriors For Hire:Blackwater USA and the rise of private military contractors", it had some information on the leadership cadre of the mercenaries, including "Blackwater vice-chairman Cofer Black, a former CIA agent and State Department coordinator for counterterrorism..." Ah, yes, the wonderful revolving door of jingo-minded right-wingers in and out of government and private enterprise, the real American way the poor saps these ideologues need to keep voting for their proxy puppets. Sheer diabolical evil genius. No wonder why the terrorists want to blow us up and kill us all, we let this kind of crap happen...