Spy Chief Caught Fibbing Again

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell fancies himself an "apolitical figure." But in the 13 months he's been on the job, he's learned to twist, stretch, bend the truth as well as any veteran politician.

For example, McConnell gave a speech the other day at Johns Hopkins University. He opened it, "as many speech-givers do, with a funny story," the* L.A. Times* notes -- a story he said was "true." One problem: it wasn't.

"It was about a historical radio conversation at sea that begins with one voice advising a ship to change course 15 degrees to avoid a collision. The ship replies that the initial radio voice should be the one to change course."

To which the first voice replies, "Dear Captain. The next move is your call. This is a Canadian lighthouse."

*Hilarious, especially to Canadians accustomed to Americans throwing their weight around the way Americans do without thinking... *

*McConnell opened that sea story by saying, "Now this is... true. I was in the signals intelligence business where you listen to the people talk and so on.
This is true. It’s an actual recording..." *

The radio exchange story... is, in fact, a phony. Untrue. False. Urban naval legend. Never happened.

Nearly 11 years ago the United States Navy posted an item on its website debunking the story.

"The following is being transmitted around the internet as an event that really took place, but it never happened. It is simply an old joke like those found in popular magazines," the Navy noted.

It's the latest in a series of gaffes for McConnell, veteran spy-watcher Jeff Stein noted in a column a few weeks back.

Ross Feinstein ought to get a Purple
Heart for all the flak he’s taken as press agent for Mike McConnell, the serial mis-stater who runs American intelligence...

Last week, for example, McConnell told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had “good information that when the U.S. embassy and the
British embassy and others were attacked, a decision was taken by the
government of Serbia actually to pull the police back and allow them to be attacked, burn the embassy and conduct the violence they conducted.”

Well, maybe not, as it turned out. It fell to Feinstein to caution reporters that “(t)here was no final conclusion or determination on this...”

Then there was last September, when Feinstein had to clean up a mess
McConnell left at the Senate Governmental Affairs and Homeland Security
Committee. The spy boss had asserted that warrantless wiretaps by U.S.
intelligence helped “facilitate” the arrest of three suspected terrorists in Germany.

The department’s official statement later: “(I)nformation contributing to the recent arrests [in
Germany] was not collected under authorities provided by the ‘Protect
America Act’.”

(Intel: TP)