The clearest orders I have ever received

Billmon has a must-read post on the Patriot Act, which the House today voted 257-171 to extend and to make most of it permanent.

A CIA agent has a book out in which he says that one week after 9/11, he was on a plane to Afghanistan with a team of agents and $3m in hundreds, with orders to bring back Osama bin Laden’s head – literally. The agent, Gary Schroen, claims to have responded, “Sir, those are the clearest orders I have ever received. I can certainly make pikes out in the field but I don’t know what I’ll do about dry ice to bring the head back - but we’ll manage something.” It’s that can-do spirit that made America great.

For a can of beans and a dickhead to be named later.