And a Wildebeest in Every Pot

But even if they were lying, that too would be harmful to national security, Hilton said. "False or exaggerated allegations by the HVDs about the classified details of the Program . . . also must be treated as classified information. To do otherwise would have the effect of allowing accurate, highly classified information about the Program to be revealed by the HVDs. If only truthful statements were redacted, a detainee with knowledge of classified facts could easily manipulate the process to reveal those classified facts."

Uh, sure.

The Principal Is Your Pal

Remember when that North Korea nukes deal was announced, and no one in charge so much as mentioned the diplomat who, whatever the pact's flaws, negotiated it? Turns out this was no accident.

The grapevine reports that the decision not to mention Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill's involvement was made at the "principals" level, meaning people such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and Vice President Cheney.

What's more, Hill himself was to keep the muzzle on until the dust settled. Even he couldn't mention his name. The feeling was he was too much of a lightning rod for just about everyone. Conservatives furiously derided the agreement as a complete cave to North Korea. The Japanese felt they were shortchanged about concerns over their citizens who were kidnapped years ago by North Korea.

For years, the administration had said North Korea would remain on the terrorist list until it came clean on the abductions. That issue had been linked to any potential nuke deal, but it got decoupled, as they say, by Hill to secure the agreement.

And there are those members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who think Hill has never been straight with them.

Correction

Thanks to everyone for writing. Yes, Santos, Brazil, is not north of Rio, as we said in Friday's column. Most readers, at least initially, said it is south. By afternoon, the sentiment seemed to be that it is really west. In any event, it is not north.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this column.