Anyone get the feeling like Mike Baker is sorta full of shit?
He has the looks and bearing of what we envision a dashing spy to be but his resume is really weak. Doesn't list military service or college. No advanced degrees, language skills, or experience living overseas. Why the fuck would the CIA recruit him and if they did how would they use him? He can embellish what he did at the CIA all he wants cause there is no way to verify it.
His only real resume point is after he left the CIA (before 9/11) he helped run a company that did security in Iraq after the invasion. If you know anything about that biz and the timeframe he got involved there were all kinds of people with shady pasts, doing stuff they weren't even close to being qualified for, and they were generally never vetted.
He seems to be an expert in EVERYTHING in the military, spy, terrorism, security etc arena. You ever met a guy that was full of shit but always had better stories than you and always knew everything?
He's a complete bullshitter. Like you said, even if he did have a grasp of that stuff pre-911 the entire CIA has since been rebudgeted into a different agency, jobs were reshuffled and the primary focus of the agency shifted from espionage to assassination. The CTC went from being an office of about 10 ignored people under Cofer Black (while Baker was apparently an employee) to an almost 10000 man operation under Tenet. It's kind of like briefly working for Nintendo in the late 70's when they manufactured playing cards and funeral invitations and then later claiming that you are the man on the inside with all of the scoops on the new Wii.
He's spoken about a couple of things I was involved with when I was in the Army and he's just full of shit. But he does seem to have conned them. I just turn his stupid shit off when he comes on.
Bush called him the "flies on eyeballs guy" after Cofer told the president that he would have the 9/11 planners laying dead in a field, with flies crawling on their open eyeballs before the year was through. Pretty much everybody in the white house thinks he's creepy but that's probably who you want up on the wall.
I don't know what he did or didn't do, obviously, but always seemed to me that he was an officially approved, media friendly PR man for the agency. If he was a total liar or fantasist, he would have been shut down very quickly.
I have no doubt in my mind that he's shilling for them, but not because he's still being paid to do so. There isn't really anything of his to shut down because he's never said anything beyond "the CIA doesn't really do anything behind the scenes, it's all just baseless conspiracy theories." He isn't exactly going out on a limb like Kiriakou or Steele did, so he probably isn't even on their media department's radar. He won't even comment on things that anybody should be able to goof on, like InQTel's new CIA facial cream.
Besides which, no one is really doubting that he worked for the CIA at some point. It just seems that the timeframe/nature of his employment was pretty limited.
tsss tss louigie was green with envy or summptin. that little fuckin muchroom looks like a falkin walkin pechka or summmmmmmttttiiiiin. Hey Nintendo, why dont you nitendon't or summtin, fuckin japs lost the fawkin war with the fawkin adam bomb or summtin now were fawkin green w envy cuz the fawkin doyyyyyesssshhhhhhhhhh
It's kind of like briefly working for Nintendo in the late 70's when they manufactured playing cards and funeral invitations and then later claiming that you are the man on the inside with all of the scoops on the new Wii.
lol. Great comment.
CIA and other defense intelligence agencies have people on the payroll from all walks of life as essentially agent provocateurs. Also, CIA etc. always have their hands involved with media (like O&A) and work to either co-opt media figures or full-on employee them as "media assets".
This lady is an interesting recent example of someone who may have been one of the CIA's media assets. I think a lot of time the intelligence agencies are much more subtle than this, but for the basic principle of what I'm getting at she's a good case study.
SIGINT would be the NSA's job. DIA collects all of the intelligence for military ops nowadays and reports directly to the SecDef and the joint chiefs. CIA takes on a great many projects that doesn't involve intelligence gathering, in fact there is no shortage of former agents who call foul on the current (and previous) administration's lack of HUMINT officers still being deployed in the field. NSA hands off coordinates to CIA whenever the wrong cellphone turns on, and then it's the CIA's job to get their drones in the air out of Djibouti (yes, they have their own and don't rely at all on the military) and hellfire it into a million tiny little peckahs.
CIA takes on a great many projects that doesn't involve intelligence gathering,
in fact there is no shortage of former agents who call foul on the current (and previous) administration's lack of HUMINT officers still being deployed in the field
so its a crippled agency? you would think the war and terrorism would mean tons of HUMINT.
sorry, just really interested in this stuff, works for defense contractor
Depends who you ask. You talk to Larry Wilkerson who served as deputy secretary of defense under colin powell and he'd agree with that sentiment I'm sure, but you talk to Donald Rumsfeld and he'd tell you that there is no way to conduct the scale of operations the way they do now without relying almost exclusively on things like metadata. HUMINT is also heavily romanticized by the previous generation of operatives who are sitting retired in Virginia and criticising every single move the CIA today makes. A lot of those guys think we should somehow be running operatives in Pakistan and Syria the same way we did with East Germany and Greece in the 70's. One too many Raymond Davis scenarios has made the HUMINT risk/reward ratio far too narrow in most countries.
Haha yeah my phone changed wilkerson to wilmore, i fixed it. CIA kills people, influences foreign politics/elections, provide support to so-called friendly terrorist groups, funds research projects into human psychology and the like, they manage IARPA, they act as the official go-betweens for State and the WH when it comes to dealing with other countries that are actually controlled by their domestic intelligence agencies like Pakistan or Jordan, they integrate with the FBI abroad and provide investigators whenever an act international terrorism is committed and we don't feel like the victim government is capable of handling it themselves. They also do HUMINT operations. The entire Afghan campaign in oct 2001 is considered their last great HUMINT operation, where Gary Schroen took 8 guys into Taliban controlled Kabul a few days after 9/11 and engineered their downfall with the help of the Panshjir Lion's boys. Obviously something like that isn't called-for every other day though.
There is editing. Do you have the ability to judge whether or not someone is a "hell of a fucking shot?" Most people (including mil and LE) are fucking horrible shots due to lack of proper training and practice.
I know of a few instances where guys have gotten onto discovery channel, news channels, NatGeo shows and segments that completely misrepresented themselves. The producers didn't know or didn't want to know the truth.
Especially without a book to sell. There are plenty of retired operatives who've written fascinating books about their time in the CIA but the only thing Mike wants to talk about is batting averages and his kids soccer practice.
He does seem to be a practiced bullshitter who pulls things out of his ass. Qualities like that are, to some extent, expected of intelligence officers. When you check out his appearances on O&A, JRE, or any other interviews, you can see him style-shifting in real time. It's cringe worthy because he's assuming this almost Platonic-ideal-level "guyness". It looks so hacky to us because we hate on motherfuckers every day, and we are largely immune to this spook's pandering. Nigga looks like old Archer.
i mean, that's more involved than i care to be with him. i don't know and i don't care, that moment was fucking hilarious to me and i prefer to take him at face value for the laugh.
I think everybody still wants him to clutch his chest and fall into something expensive, it's just there's no reason to reiterate that unless he does something to get our attention.
It just goes to show, with all Ant's whining about us, the fans were at least 1/4 of the funny on the show. Jimmy, Ant, the guests, and the fans (Opie not included in the calculation, for obvious reasons).
Even on WNEW, the Instant Feedback was Opie's go to source of jokes, Ant would constantly reference shit going on in the paltalk room, the callers, assault on the media, WOW, etc.
Opie's "And I guess we are supposed to be mad at that" talking about fake Roland booking Baker is such an Opie line. The guy had no intention of trying to make you mad, idiot. The guy was just having fun.
Opie saying they did some investigating to get to the bottom of it is typical Opie, too. All Mike Baker did was tell them he though Roland booked him through Twitter, show the tweet, and seeing it was a fake twitter account.
Opie really does try to come off as being smart when he is actually dumber than Vos.
I think Vos is dumb but not as much as Opie tries to make him seem. I'd bet Vos would answer more questions than him in a dumb off, and then Opie would go on in that gravely voice he tries to do that he always knew Vos was smarter than he portrayed him and that it was "just some dumb radio bit for the radio".
Vos has self awareness, Opie doesn't. There's a clip where Opie just kept trashing Vos on his speech and grammar but then Vos pointed out that Opie was actually wrong (he was). He shrugged it off and kept trashing him.
opie is fully aware of how retarded he is, but is desperate to try and hide it from other people. he's incredibly insecure, that's why he's so defensive when people call him out on it.
He tweeted Roland that he was outside and Roland let him come up. Conversely, that black dietician dude was booked by fake Roland and fatso wouldn't let him upstairs
Bush called him the "flies on eyeballs guy" after Cofer told the president that he would have the 9/11 planners laying dead in a field, with flies crawling on their open eyeballs before the year was through. Pretty much everybody in the white house thinks he's creepy but that's probably who you want up on the wall.
65 comments
46 Stevebg 2016-04-13
Anyone get the feeling like Mike Baker is sorta full of shit?
He has the looks and bearing of what we envision a dashing spy to be but his resume is really weak. Doesn't list military service or college. No advanced degrees, language skills, or experience living overseas. Why the fuck would the CIA recruit him and if they did how would they use him? He can embellish what he did at the CIA all he wants cause there is no way to verify it.
His only real resume point is after he left the CIA (before 9/11) he helped run a company that did security in Iraq after the invasion. If you know anything about that biz and the timeframe he got involved there were all kinds of people with shady pasts, doing stuff they weren't even close to being qualified for, and they were generally never vetted.
He seems to be an expert in EVERYTHING in the military, spy, terrorism, security etc arena. You ever met a guy that was full of shit but always had better stories than you and always knew everything?
34 whydontUlovemeLyndsi 2016-04-13
He's a complete bullshitter. Like you said, even if he did have a grasp of that stuff pre-911 the entire CIA has since been rebudgeted into a different agency, jobs were reshuffled and the primary focus of the agency shifted from espionage to assassination. The CTC went from being an office of about 10 ignored people under Cofer Black (while Baker was apparently an employee) to an almost 10000 man operation under Tenet. It's kind of like briefly working for Nintendo in the late 70's when they manufactured playing cards and funeral invitations and then later claiming that you are the man on the inside with all of the scoops on the new Wii.
10 kickerofelves 2016-04-13
He's a blowhard bullshit artist.
He's spoken about a couple of things I was involved with when I was in the Army and he's just full of shit. But he does seem to have conned them. I just turn his stupid shit off when he comes on.
2 Stevebg 2016-04-13
Anyway we could expose him?
8 whydontUlovemeLyndsi 2016-04-13
he already is a brother joe level dunce. pay him no mind
2 [deleted] 2016-04-13
[deleted]
8 Brumaired 2016-04-13
Still the coolest spook name ever.
12 whydontUlovemeLyndsi 2016-04-13
Bush called him the "flies on eyeballs guy" after Cofer told the president that he would have the 9/11 planners laying dead in a field, with flies crawling on their open eyeballs before the year was through. Pretty much everybody in the white house thinks he's creepy but that's probably who you want up on the wall.
2 SWIMsfriend 2016-04-13
you would think someone working in the intelligence community wouldn't be a fan of O&A, sort of worries me about the hiring policies there.
1 blackirishlad 2016-04-13
everybody has their talent i guess....
the way you said that immediately made me think of some of the creepy goths or spaz kids i knew in middle school and high school haha
2 Stevebg 2016-04-13
"The gloves come off....."
1 [deleted] 2016-04-13
[deleted]
5 McGowan9 2016-04-13
I don't know what he did or didn't do, obviously, but always seemed to me that he was an officially approved, media friendly PR man for the agency. If he was a total liar or fantasist, he would have been shut down very quickly.
8 whydontUlovemeLyndsi 2016-04-13
I have no doubt in my mind that he's shilling for them, but not because he's still being paid to do so. There isn't really anything of his to shut down because he's never said anything beyond "the CIA doesn't really do anything behind the scenes, it's all just baseless conspiracy theories." He isn't exactly going out on a limb like Kiriakou or Steele did, so he probably isn't even on their media department's radar. He won't even comment on things that anybody should be able to goof on, like InQTel's new CIA facial cream.
2 panjshirlion 2016-04-13
Besides which, no one is really doubting that he worked for the CIA at some point. It just seems that the timeframe/nature of his employment was pretty limited.
1 kickerofelves 2016-04-13
Yeah that's exactly how it strikes me as well.
5 SirWallaceII 2016-04-13
tsss tss louigie was green with envy or summptin. that little fuckin muchroom looks like a falkin walkin pechka or summmmmmmttttiiiiin. Hey Nintendo, why dont you nitendon't or summtin, fuckin japs lost the fawkin war with the fawkin adam bomb or summtin now were fawkin green w envy cuz the fawkin doyyyyyesssshhhhhhhhhh
4 whydontUlovemeLyndsi 2016-04-13
Ya man
3 BarryMcCaulkener 2016-04-13
lol. Great comment.
CIA and other defense intelligence agencies have people on the payroll from all walks of life as essentially agent provocateurs. Also, CIA etc. always have their hands involved with media (like O&A) and work to either co-opt media figures or full-on employee them as "media assets".
This lady is an interesting recent example of someone who may have been one of the CIA's media assets. I think a lot of time the intelligence agencies are much more subtle than this, but for the basic principle of what I'm getting at she's a good case study.
1 Stevebg 2016-04-13
I always liked Malcolm Nance a lot more as an expert guest.
1 SWIMsfriend 2016-04-13
you would think in the age of the internet and cell phones, the CIA would be less into assassination much less have 10000 men devoted to it.
2 whydontUlovemeLyndsi 2016-04-13
SIGINT would be the NSA's job. DIA collects all of the intelligence for military ops nowadays and reports directly to the SecDef and the joint chiefs. CIA takes on a great many projects that doesn't involve intelligence gathering, in fact there is no shortage of former agents who call foul on the current (and previous) administration's lack of HUMINT officers still being deployed in the field. NSA hands off coordinates to CIA whenever the wrong cellphone turns on, and then it's the CIA's job to get their drones in the air out of Djibouti (yes, they have their own and don't rely at all on the military) and hellfire it into a million tiny little peckahs.
1 SWIMsfriend 2016-04-13
so its a crippled agency? you would think the war and terrorism would mean tons of HUMINT.
sorry, just really interested in this stuff, works for defense contractor
1 whydontUlovemeLyndsi 2016-04-13
Depends who you ask. You talk to Larry Wilkerson who served as deputy secretary of defense under colin powell and he'd agree with that sentiment I'm sure, but you talk to Donald Rumsfeld and he'd tell you that there is no way to conduct the scale of operations the way they do now without relying almost exclusively on things like metadata. HUMINT is also heavily romanticized by the previous generation of operatives who are sitting retired in Virginia and criticising every single move the CIA today makes. A lot of those guys think we should somehow be running operatives in Pakistan and Syria the same way we did with East Germany and Greece in the 70's. One too many Raymond Davis scenarios has made the HUMINT risk/reward ratio far too narrow in most countries.
1 SWIMsfriend 2016-04-13
so what else would the CIA do if HUMINT is out the window
try again
1 whydontUlovemeLyndsi 2016-04-13
Haha yeah my phone changed wilkerson to wilmore, i fixed it. CIA kills people, influences foreign politics/elections, provide support to so-called friendly terrorist groups, funds research projects into human psychology and the like, they manage IARPA, they act as the official go-betweens for State and the WH when it comes to dealing with other countries that are actually controlled by their domestic intelligence agencies like Pakistan or Jordan, they integrate with the FBI abroad and provide investigators whenever an act international terrorism is committed and we don't feel like the victim government is capable of handling it themselves. They also do HUMINT operations. The entire Afghan campaign in oct 2001 is considered their last great HUMINT operation, where Gary Schroen took 8 guys into Taliban controlled Kabul a few days after 9/11 and engineered their downfall with the help of the Panshjir Lion's boys. Obviously something like that isn't called-for every other day though.
1 SWIMsfriend 2016-04-13
that is some weak tea
1 justbabbling 2016-04-13
Are you demonstrating that people will believe you if you have a good story?
6 [deleted] 2016-04-13
[deleted]
1 Stevebg 2016-04-13
There is editing. Do you have the ability to judge whether or not someone is a "hell of a fucking shot?" Most people (including mil and LE) are fucking horrible shots due to lack of proper training and practice.
I know of a few instances where guys have gotten onto discovery channel, news channels, NatGeo shows and segments that completely misrepresented themselves. The producers didn't know or didn't want to know the truth.
3 Slippery_Slope_Guy 2016-04-13
I've always thought it weird that an ex CIA would take on such a public persona.
3 whydontUlovemeLyndsi 2016-04-13
Especially without a book to sell. There are plenty of retired operatives who've written fascinating books about their time in the CIA but the only thing Mike wants to talk about is batting averages and his kids soccer practice.
1 bessieventurok 2016-04-13
Mike Baker is no John Stockwell (won't be seein' him no more).
3 bessieventurok 2016-04-13
He does seem to be a practiced bullshitter who pulls things out of his ass. Qualities like that are, to some extent, expected of intelligence officers. When you check out his appearances on O&A, JRE, or any other interviews, you can see him style-shifting in real time. It's cringe worthy because he's assuming this almost Platonic-ideal-level "guyness". It looks so hacky to us because we hate on motherfuckers every day, and we are largely immune to this spook's pandering. Nigga looks like old Archer.
2 blackirishlad 2016-04-13
i mean, that's more involved than i care to be with him. i don't know and i don't care, that moment was fucking hilarious to me and i prefer to take him at face value for the laugh.
2 Stevebg 2016-04-13
I laughed my ass off when this happened.
-9 [deleted] 2016-04-13
[deleted]
25 okconsumer 2016-04-13
"@MBCompanyMan hey Anthony wants to have you on again to say the same three things you always say. Are you free next week?"
11 grimmis123 2016-04-13
One of my favorite things a fan has ever done. It's such a perfect disassembly of a person.
10 panjshirlion 2016-04-13
That, and it ruined Roland's professional reputation.
12 PassProtect15 2016-04-13
Remember the vicious Roland hate on here? Feels like so long ago.
10 ImJustRiffin 2016-04-13
I think everybody still wants him to clutch his chest and fall into something expensive, it's just there's no reason to reiterate that unless he does something to get our attention.
3 Ojisan1 2016-04-13
It just goes to show, with all Ant's whining about us, the fans were at least 1/4 of the funny on the show. Jimmy, Ant, the guests, and the fans (Opie not included in the calculation, for obvious reasons).
Even on WNEW, the Instant Feedback was Opie's go to source of jokes, Ant would constantly reference shit going on in the paltalk room, the callers, assault on the media, WOW, etc.
21 [deleted] 2016-04-13
Opie's "And I guess we are supposed to be mad at that" talking about fake Roland booking Baker is such an Opie line. The guy had no intention of trying to make you mad, idiot. The guy was just having fun.
Opie saying they did some investigating to get to the bottom of it is typical Opie, too. All Mike Baker did was tell them he though Roland booked him through Twitter, show the tweet, and seeing it was a fake twitter account.
Opie really does try to come off as being smart when he is actually dumber than Vos.
9 CCRed95 2016-04-13
I dont really think vos is all that dumb, he just cant speak
13 [deleted] 2016-04-13
I think Vos is dumb but not as much as Opie tries to make him seem. I'd bet Vos would answer more questions than him in a dumb off, and then Opie would go on in that gravely voice he tries to do that he always knew Vos was smarter than he portrayed him and that it was "just some dumb radio bit for the radio".
14 Phantas_Magorical 2016-04-13
Vos has self awareness, Opie doesn't. There's a clip where Opie just kept trashing Vos on his speech and grammar but then Vos pointed out that Opie was actually wrong (he was). He shrugged it off and kept trashing him.
5 ManWithAIDS 2016-04-13
opie is fully aware of how retarded he is, but is desperate to try and hide it from other people. he's incredibly insecure, that's why he's so defensive when people call him out on it.
3 SHUT_UP_STUPID 2016-04-13
Opie is smart enough to never allow callers to get on the line who would propose a dumb off for him or people close to him who would support the idea.
1 whydontUlovemeLyndsi 2016-04-13
Its probably the foremost thought in his brain at any given moment
2 Wellshiteinabucket 2016-04-13
https://youtu.be/pcOmFtzjUxA
6 whydontUlovemeLyndsi 2016-04-13
You don't like it when Opie gets indignant about situations that he couldnt possibly comprehend?
18 _then 2016-04-13
when Sam mentions Ed Asner: "Isn't that the guy who called you the destroyer?"
Opie: "Whddaya gonna do, its a nickname. Coming soon to a t-shirt SNIFF"
ugh
11 MartyVanB 2016-04-13
1. Tits: And then Fake Roland on Twitter.....
Anthony: HA HA HA HA HA FAKE ROLAND HA HA HA HA HA
Anthony: HA HA HA HA HA THROUGH FRIDAY!! HA HA HA HA HA
Anthony: HA HA HA HA 14 CASES HA HA HA HA
Anthony: HA HA HA HA FOUR HOURS HA HA HA HA
Anthony: HA HA HA HA ITS IMPORTANT HA HA HA HA
16 BoardroomBimmy 2016-04-13
Anthony was really knocking it out of the park those last few months.
8 ImJustRiffin 2016-04-13
You can't say he wasn't listening.
5 [deleted] 2016-04-13
NOISES
1 YouAintGotToLieCraig 2016-04-13
There's a compilation on youtube of him laughing like that and repeating punchlines. I heard it years ago but I haven't been able to find it since.
4 MartyVanB 2016-04-13
Its O&A The Eddie Veder one is dahooooouuuuccchhheey
3 TakesTheWrongSideGuy 2016-04-13
Any ex-cia, mobster, criminal, etc that comes out as a public figure is usually full of shit.
2 rollmeonekenobi420 2016-04-13
Wasn't this the early days of this sub? Back when it was only Roland hate?
4 TakesTheWrongSideGuy 2016-04-13
Yup the good ol days when this place just shared clips and archived the show for each other. Now it's just a mad house
2 white_hispanic 2016-04-13
Holy shit! Ice knife haha
1 CCRed95 2016-04-13
holy fuck thats funny
1 [deleted] 2016-04-13
[deleted]
1 NLclothing 2016-04-13
If they are so serious about security in that building, how was he on the guest list for that day?
1 badbillypratt 2016-04-13
He tweeted Roland that he was outside and Roland let him come up. Conversely, that black dietician dude was booked by fake Roland and fatso wouldn't let him upstairs
1 NLclothing 2016-04-13
Ah, I thought we may have a quanspiracy on our hands
1 phlammo 2016-04-13
Ahhh... simpler times.
1 [deleted] 2016-04-13
[deleted]
1 Zenaesthetic 2016-04-13
Mike Baker is a total shill for the CIA still.
12 whydontUlovemeLyndsi 2016-04-13
Bush called him the "flies on eyeballs guy" after Cofer told the president that he would have the 9/11 planners laying dead in a field, with flies crawling on their open eyeballs before the year was through. Pretty much everybody in the white house thinks he's creepy but that's probably who you want up on the wall.
2 Stevebg 2016-04-13
"The gloves come off....."
8 ImJustRiffin 2016-04-13
You can't say he wasn't listening.
1 [deleted] 2016-04-13
[deleted]
1 kickerofelves 2016-04-13
Yeah that's exactly how it strikes me as well.