Check out today's
Senate roll call votes for the Hayden confimation. In the
NAY box we've got Clinton, Kennedy, Obama, Kerry, Feingold...
Specter...Harkin, Durbin, Dorgan...
UPI reported Monday that
Stephen Kappes and Sen. Arlen Specter will be crucial to Gen. Michael Hayden's success at the CIA.
If the four star U.S. Air Force general wins the backing of Senate Intelligence Committee members, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., the leading Republican critic of the domestic surveillance program that Hayden, as director of the National Security Agency, helped to create; and Stephen Kappes, a veteran CIA officer beloved by the career intelligence establishment, will be crucial to his success as the next director of the CIA, National Journal said Friday[...]
Indeed, Democrats may not have to try to block Hayden; Specter has done most of the dirty work for those in both parties who either oppose warrantless eavesdropping altogether or who want the administration to come clean on how expansive the surveillance program really is, the report said.
I guess Mr. Specter wasn't satisfied with his "dirty work" and the responses he's been getting from his inquiries (namely none). Specter had to take it a step further.
Hayden was clearly going to be confirmed.
I love the smell of quiet dissention within the party in the afternoon.