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Cookie's Very, Very Important Holiday
He probably called it a working vacation.
TPMm friend Nick Schwellenbach at POGO highlighted this a couple weeks back, but it's never too late to bring to your attention the travel photos of Howard "Cookie" Krongard, the embattled State Department inspector general.
To the left and above, Cookie hangs out with his security detail. "Not too worried about the bad guys at the moment," the caption says. Unfortunately, those guys weren't around for Cookie's Congressional hearing earlier this week.
To the right, see him kick back in what he calls the "V V I P lounge" of Kabul airport on what appears to be a leopard-skin chair! He must be tired from a hard day of thoroughly investigating waste, fraud and abuse in Afghanistan all by himself.
Below, a sporty-looking Cookie climbs the ruins of what he claims is a Taliban armored personnel carrier! (They had those?)
Comments (19)
Do they make plus-sized body armor for that poor man?
November 16, 2007 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
What does one need to do to get a job like Cookie's? I think I could make a fine IG! {And I don't even have a brother so nepotism and conflict of interest would never be an issue1]
Are they accepting applications?
November 16, 2007 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
And this is newsworthy because?
November 16, 2007 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
You know, it would be interesting to add up all the war profiteering (piles of money on planes, hundreds of thousands of lost guns) and domestic embezzlement under Bush.
I'm sure it would total more than the $22 billion difference between Bush's budget & the Democrats' budget.
November 16, 2007 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
They did have armored personnel carriers. Our 'allies' the Pakistanis, Saudis and Emirates all provided support to the tyrants.
Or the Talibs purchased them directly, with funds they received from Unocal - a company then run by former CIA head Bill Casey.
Tentacles everywhere...
November 16, 2007 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Multiple Choice Question:
What happens when POTUS puts Scooter,Cookie, Brownie, Fredo, Condi, and Turd Blossom in a blender together?
a. We end up with a sack of shit!
b. The contents morph into the piece of TP Larry Craig claims he picked up off the public restroom floor.
c. A mess that has cost us billions and needs to flushed before the stench overwhelms.
d. We end up with a sack of shit!
November 16, 2007 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
sabatia wrote on November 16, 2007 11:59 AM:
Multiple Choice Question:
What happens when POTUS puts Scooter,Cookie, Brownie, Fredo, Condi, and Turd Blossom in a blender together?
Answer: All of the above.
November 16, 2007 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was wondering if our country will ever recover from the 8-year Bush looting.
November 16, 2007 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
so that old dood in the purple sweatshirt is one of those highly skilled/highly trained mercenaries. glad to see he carries himself with such rootin' tootin' class.
November 16, 2007 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Linda, Tut tut tut. No ageism allowed here. Against the rules you know.
November 16, 2007 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's not body armor, it's a bib.
November 16, 2007 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Answer to blender question:
Two sack-fulls in a single sack.
November 16, 2007 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
sabatia -- it's ok. i'm old. lol.
btw, gotta love the vest; sure hope he doesn't get gutshot...
November 16, 2007 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now, this is a junket, in the words of shotgun Cheney. Does this guy have no shame? He is supposed to be in a war zone and he's grinning from ear to ear while we know some of our young soldiers are dying. Another Bush clone.
November 16, 2007 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is great that TPM is soo on top of the Krongard's gatekeeping of Blackwater/private contractors.
Fantastic work.
Too bad TPM is not our State Departments Inspector General.
November 16, 2007 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Am I re-stating the obvious to point out that the former #3 at the CIA during GWB's first term was another interesting character also named Krongard? As in A.B."Buzzy" Krongard. He was forced out of CIA a couple of years ago over something involving a poker game at the Watergate and some very big names within the Administration (and I don't think I dreamed all of this up). However, poker may have been a frat house smokescreen, meant to cover the most wicked allegation concerning Buzzy Krongard, which is that he was a key player in the mysterious, covered-up (yet very real) insider trading for million$ on Wall St, just before 9/11. Trades which strongly suggest a very specific FOREKNOWLEDGE OF 9/11, in detail (see the book "Crossing the Rubicon" by M.C. Ruppert - pg. 244)
So, may we assume they are brothers??
November 16, 2007 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
So how does standing on a wrecked armored personnel carrier in the desert help you find out if there's fraud in Afghanistan? Sounds like a classic boondoggle to me.
U
November 16, 2007 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Its only a boondoggle or "junket" when its a Democrat or D appointed government employee involved. Rs and their pals can do no harm. Far more serious, and he didn't need instructions, it was implied: Blackwater, embassy contractors, etc.: these are our friends and contributors; we know them and know they are doing "the right thing", therefore we will give them an automatic free pass on their first five (or is it ten) potential investigations. This is just the way the cookie crumbles for us inside the beltway players. [Until we get caught.]
November 16, 2007 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
> This is newsworthy because?
It actually happened? That's a higher standard than employed on cable "news" channels. And this is a fever-swamp bog-blog written by untrained non-journalists (even if it was written by people trained as journalists). Therefore the subject matter cannot be newsworthy.
November 17, 2007 4:20 AM | Reply | Permalink