Not So Intelligent

On the pages of Richard Mellon Scaife's Tribune-Review this morning, there was this knotted tale of paranoia masquerading as political intrigue. It begins:

With a new CIA report labeling as a spy a Chinese "think tank" head with whom Vice President Joe Biden and other Americans have met, Washington must come to terms with Beijing's nature as an enemy hostile to U.S. interests. Many American officials and ex-officials have met with Cui Liru, "a longtime Ministry of State Security (MSS) intelligence officer working undercover as the head of China's most important intelligence-analysis group," The Washington Times reports.

Here's the Washington Times article if you wanna follow along by yourself.

And here's Open Source report as well.

Let's begin.  We get our first expert here:

Former State Department intelligence official John Tkacik told The Times that U.S. universities and think tanks "don't ... take CICIR's intelligence-collection or disinformation tasks seriously."

Who's John Tkacik, you might ask?  This is where things unravel for Scaife's braintrust.  Note they refer to him as a "Former State Department intelligence official" but he's more.

He's also a "Heritage Expert" at the Scaife-funded Heritage Foundation.  Hmm.  Now why don't you think they'd mention that??

Further down the Times article there's some counter-comments. Comment, I might add, that the Braintrust chose not to include in it's paranoid rant:

Larry Wortzel, a former U.S. military intelligence officer, said he is less concerned about CICIR’s intelligence activities.

“They are professional about what they do. They understand we need info on our side, and they need info on theirs. So when you put them against the Russians, the Indians, the Laotians, the Cambodians, or the Vietnamese, they are easier to work with,” Mr. Wortzel said, noting that CICIR officials “don’t talk about internal matters.”

“They will give very good background information and explain the dynamics behind party decisions,” Mr. Wortzel said.

So who's this Larry Wortzel?

Why he's also a "Heritage Expert" at the Scaife-funded Heritage Foundation.  Small world, huh?

But his opinion, pooh-poohing the threat of the CICIR is ignored by the Scaife braintrust

Huh.  Interesting.