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Tenet's Party; Romney's Sons; McCain Contradicts Himself Ronald Kessler
George Tenet's Hush-Hush Book Party George Tenet's book party was, appropriately, a hush-hush affair. Because of security concerns, pre-party publicity was discouraged. NBC's Andrea Mitchell, Scott Pelley from "60 Minutes," and only a handful of other journalists were invited. They did not include Bob Woodward, whose quote of Tenet's "slam dunk" remark led to Tenet's decision to leave as director of Central Intelligence and write his just-released book "At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA." Despite the swipes Tenet took at the Bush administration in the book, both the CIA and the FBI were well represented. The turnout was testimony to how highly Tenet is regarded by those in the know about how he turned around the CIA after it had shriveled and become risk-averse under President Clinton. His efforts led Bush to give him the Medal of Freedom. FBI Director Robert Mueller and CIA Deputy Director Stephen R. Kappes attended, along with more shadowy figures. Because he was delivering a commencement address at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, CIA Director Michael Hayden could not attend. "Watch what you do; the FBI director is here," Tenet joked when he spoke to the several hundred guests at Riggs Library at Georgetown University, where he teaches.
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Jane Friedman, president and CEO of HarperCollins, announced that the book will debut as the No. 1 best seller on The New York Times hardcover non-fiction list. The book has 450,000 copies in print. When at the CIA, Tenet would sometimes direct his security detail to let him off while he picked up a bag of Dunkin' Donuts. Since leaving the agency, Tenet has slimmed down. At the book party, Tenet imparted his secret. "I drink a protein milkshake for breakfast and lunch," he told me. "Then the rest of the day, I can have 1,000 calories." Meanwhile, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is writing his memoirs. They are sure to contradict Tenet's claim that the Bush administration was in a rush to go to war in Iraq after 9/11. As noted in a May 2 NewsMax article, Dick Cheney's Real Role, the U.S. did not invade Iraq until a year and a half after 9/11.
Romney's Sons on the Trail
In contrast to Rudy Giuliani's two children, who are estranged from him, all five of Mitt Romney's sons are campaigning for him. With their Gap-ad good looks, his sons have fanned out across the country to stump for their father in the key primary states. "I'm actually preparing to head out to Iowa soon to visit all 99 counties and do some stumping for my dad," Josh Romney told me recently. Taggart Romney, the Romney's oldest son, left Los Angeles and a job with the Dodgers to move back to Belmont, Mass., not far from his parents' home, to work full-time for the campaign. "He's extremely intelligent, highly energetic," Tagg Romney says of his father. "He doesn't see the brick walls; he just runs right through them." The sons are trying to avoid the sort of youthful gaffe that their father jokes about. Because Mitt Romney's parents had a cottage on the Canadian shores of Lake Huron, they always celebrated the 4th of July there. When campaigning for his father George Romney, the 15-year-old Mitt said to a crowd, "It's really fun to be here in the United States for the 4th of July for the first time!"
McCain Contradicts Himself on His Temper It's one thing for a candidate to flip-flop on issues. It's another thing for a candidate to contradict himself on himself. That's what John McCain has been doing — repeatedly — on whether he has a temper. The latest example was when Chris Wallace asked the Arizona senator about his temper on "Fox News Sunday." Wallace said some of McCain's fellow senators talk about experiencing a "McCain moment, when you jump down their throats, or you get testy with critics." Wallace asked McCain, "One: How do you plead? And two: Would that be a problem for a president?" "It's simply not true," McCain said. "I mean, it's simply not true. I mean, do I get angry at corruption when I see it? Sure. Do I get angry when I see this pork barrel spending? Of course. Do I get angry when I see people not acting at the standards the American people expect us to do? Of course. Do I have, quote, temper tantrums? No, I don't." Over the years, McCain has alternately admitted he struggles to control his anger, denied being prone to angry outbursts, or has claimed he only becomes angry over waste and abuse. But contrary to what McCain told Chris Wallace, those who have experienced his anger say it does not erupt over policy issues or waste and abuse. Rather, his outbursts manifest themselves when peers disagree with him or tell him they won't support him. In his 2002 book, "Worth the Fighting For: A Memoir," McCain said, "I have a temper, to state the obvious, which I have tried to control with varying degrees of success because it does not always serve my interest or the public's." But the Baltimore Sun quoted McCain on March 20, 2006, as denying he had a temper: "Just because someone says it's there, you would have to provide some corroboration that it was," McCain said. "Because I do not lose my temper. I do not ... for someone to say that McCain became just angry and yelled or raised my voice ... it's just not true," McCain said. Just two days earlier, however, McCain said at a forum in Scottsdale, Ariz., "I have had a bad temper in my life." Saying he displayed his temper in his early days in office, McCain said, "Every time I ever lost my temper, I regretted it since then." As outlined in a Jan. 11 NewsMax article, "Vanity Fair Tiptoes Around McCain's Explosive Temper," those who have dealt with him on a daily basis say McCain has an out-of-control temper that raises questions about whether he is fit to have his finger on the nuclear trigger. Nowhere is that sentiment stronger than in the Senate, where McCain has few friends or supporters. In fact, when McCain ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2000, only four Republican senators endorsed him. They included Fred Thompson, who was his national campaign co-chairman. "I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues," former Sen. Bob Smith told me. A New Hampshire Republican, Smith served with McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee, on a select committee on POWs missing in action, and on Republican policy committees. "He would disagree about something and then explode," Smith said. "[There were] incidents of irrational behavior. We've all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I've never seen anyone act like that." McCain's outbursts often erupted when other members rebuffed his requests for support during his bid in 2000 for the Republican nomination for president. A former Senate staffer recalled what happened when McCain asked for support from a fellow Republican senator on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. "The senator explained that he had already committed to support George Bush," the former Senate staffer said. "McCain said, ‘f*** you,' and never spoke to him again." McCain's diametrically opposed claims about his temper raise questions: Is McCain so arrogant that he thinks he can say anything and get away with it? Or is he such a loose cannon that he doesn't know what the truth is?
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of NewsMax.com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via e-mail. Go here now.
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