Sunday, June 11, 2006

Reid

Kudos to Reid for being for net neutrality. I had the chance to have a bit of a chat with him with some other bloggers right before his speech. I was never quite sure how on or off the record it was so I can't go into detail, but he said a couple of surprising (in a very good way) things that I didn't quite expect from the conservative Democrat from Nevada.

He gave a good speech as well - the main bit of news was his legislation he's proposing regarding Iran. Here's the relevant bit from the press release:

Looking ahead to Iran and other national security challenges, Reid said: "We face many threats - threats that have grown worse - because this administration took its eye off the ball. We must address these threats, but we must never allow this Administration or any future Administration to manipulate or mislead for ideological or political reasons."

Reid's legislation, the Iran Intelligence Oversight Act, would:

  • Require an updated national intelligence estimate on Iran with an unclassified summary available to inform debate by Congress and the American people

  • Require the President to report to Congress on his objectives regarding Iran and his strategy for achieving them

  • Require the Director of National Intelligence to show Congress that he has a process to review statements about Iran and other key challenges to our national security made by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and key cabinet officials to ensure they are consistent with the consensus assessments of professional intelligence analysts.

"Next week, I will introduce new legislation to ensure that Americans are not misled again about a national security challenge. The bill will require intelligence community professionals to monitor and certify administration statements about the threat posed by Iran," Reid said of the legislation. "Every thing they say will have to be supported by facts. I have no doubt the White House won't like this requirement, but after what happened in Iraq, the American people deserve nothing less."





He also discussed his recently arrived granddaughter, being quite proud of the fact that after she was named River Reid he had his "own little hippie."