More Nicknames

Following up on the Fredo issue discussed below, Ezra Klein does seem correct to suggest that the codename "CURVEBALL" alone should have hinted that the person in question was less-than-reliable.

Comments

Cheney's nickname? Hermann
Bush's nickname: Me First.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 24, 2007 3:46 PM

I remember seeing a documentary where they interviewed Robert Baer, the rather now-famous ex-CIA agent who worked the Middle East beat and has written a couple books about it (Syriana was based on one of them).

He said, "Curveball? Wasn't that clear enough? Did they really need to name him 'lying sack of shit' to get the message across that this wasn't a reputable source?"

Posted by 3pointshooter | June 24, 2007 4:15 PM

And an even better example is the total reliance of America's East Coast DC/NYC opinion elite upon Ahmad Chalabi, known throughout the entire Middle East as "Chalabi-the-Thief" (because of his gigantic retail bank fraud in Jordan).

You would think Tim Russert, Jim Lehrer, and the NY Times writers would have been a little suspicious when they were introducing their TV guest or prime Middle East news source as "Chalabi-the-Thief"...

Posted by RKU | June 24, 2007 6:48 PM

The actual name wasn't "Curveball," it was "Eephus."

Posted by Rosenbaum | June 24, 2007 7:35 PM