The WSJ On The CIA

The Wall Street Journal defends the CIA interrogation program.

As best I have been able to follow this while on a mini-vaca, Eric Holder is going to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate front-line abuses that were given a pass by DoJ careerists five years ago.  Do I have that about right?  It sounds like the sort of non-politicized Justice Dept we want - then the next Administration can investigate the voter intimidation case that Holder's team chose to drop.

Comments

[Jane]

Yeah, you got that right. Don't forget letting Bill Richardson off the hook, while you are at it.

[Jim Ryan]

Yeah, screw the permanent $1.5T deficits. Let's investigate something nobody cares about.

[bad s##t]

Obama and Holder and Richardson suck.....

[PeterUK]

This is a bone for the nutroots. On everything to do with the War on Terror,Obama is Bush lite.

[matt]

think about it. Dismissing the intimidation case against the Black Panthers, dismissing the case against Richardson, the CIA case...and where oh where is Patrick Fitzgerald, the Bulldog of the Potomac? The prosecutor who made a dog's breakfast of the Plame investigation?

Rezko? Blagojevich? not much from those canaries these days.....

[MayBee]

You like the special investigator, TM?

I'm surprised.

[Jane]

Has anyone heard from Rick? DO we know we don't have to worry?

[MICHAEL SPENCER]

I don't know about the soul of some of these posters, but I have read of some the interrogation methods and some of then made make me sick. Also, what about the men or woman who conducted these interrogations? How do you think they are feeling? Are they "tortured" souls? We forget about the people who actually had to do the interrogations. They also might be victims

[JM Hanes]

Jane:

Aside from Richardson's current trade mission to Cuba, I was struck by this little paragraph in the FoxNews story:

The decision not to pursue indictments was made by top Justice Department officials, according to a person familiar with the investigation, who asked not to be identified because federal officials had not disclosed results of the probe.

I'd be willing to bet that "top Justice Department officials" is a euphemism - or camouflage -- for "political appointees," wouldn't you? It's also pretty easy to fix the odds that the results of Holder's torture probe, so to speak, of the CIA will not be disclosed at zero to none. Mission creep, however, is looking good. As Krauthammer recently noted, all roads lead to the "Great White Whale" reincarnated as Karl Rove.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I have read of some the interrogation methods and some of then made make me sick.

Cigar smoke will do that to you, when you're a child.

[clarice]

I'm waiting for those big law firms that rushed to defend the Gitmo detainees to offer their services to the CIA interrogators.

[Jane]

I'd be willing to bet that "top Justice Department officials" is a euphemism - or camouflage -- for "political appointees," wouldn't you?

I would indeed.

[bgates]

what about the men or woman who conducted these interrogations? How do you think they are feeling?

Like they're about to be prosecuted for defending their country from murderous psychopaths.

[bishop]

According to this, is dangerously close to the 'noninvasive methods' of interrogation in "Demolition Man" in the LUN.

[MayBee]

who doesn't love bgates?

[sbw]

Justice, like beauty, is in the eye of the E. Holder.

[Sue]

from murderous psychopaths

I shouldn't laugh but I can't help it. We have psychologically damaged the detainees by pretending we are going to use a drill on them and apparently we damaged them for life by blowing cigar smoke in their face. The same people who plot and plan mass killings. And carry them out.

[matt]

I think making them watch The View may be against the Geneva Conventions, but it's still legal. Or make 'em watch the "L" Word or one of those MTV reality shows.....Christian broadcasting would work too. They would be so disoriented by it all they would sing like canaries.

Skinner's experiments would be another starting point.

bgates, their country is now being run by sociopaths.

[MayBee]

Maybe if the CIA had recorded the mock executions on tape, the terrorists could have been made to watch them, like kids have to watch driver's ed videos.

[bgates]

Maybe if the CIA had recorded the mock executions on tape, the terrorists could have been made to watch them

Would it have been legal to make captured terrorists watch captured terrorist videos?

Could an interrogator play the Nick Berg video for KSM and then say, "I'm from Philadelphia, and...well, how do you think that makes me feel?"

[JM Hanes]

MICHAEL SPENCER:

If they were burning people with cigarettes -- as opposed to blowing cigar smoke in people's faces -- then I'd say you had a valid point about considering the effect on interrogators as well as detainees. There are plenty of things that make me gut wrenchingly sick, however, but almost none of them qualify as torture. The threshold seems pretty obvious to me. We waterboard our own troops in training. We don't pull out their fingernails.

Where lasting damage is concerned, I'd concentrate on how CIA interrogators feel about witchhunts initiated by newly installed political appointees at DoJ, when the Department's career professionals had already conducted an investigation and determined that further action was unwarranted.

I'd also worry about the Attorney General's predilection for bypassing those same professionals to get the results he's looking for. He started out by rejecting a constitutional finding from his own Office of Legal Counsel, whose opinions with regard to the Executive Branch have always been treated as definitive. The Black Panthers' voter intimidation case was aborted after it had been won, by another of his appointed subordinates with what clearly must have been his approval, if not instigation. It seems he intends to appoint a Special Prosecutor in the CIA matter, once again, removing it from the purview of Departmental specialists when no apparent conflict of interest exists -- save that between the previous outcome and the outcome devoutly desired by the restless Obama base on the left. I personally see the fact that the CIA is being systematically dismantled with their operations being absorbed by the FBI as the unacknowledged elephant in the room. What I don't see is any possibility of Holder citing that conflict as a basis for putting an independent investigator in place.

[PeterUK]

"I don't know about the soul of some of these posters, but I have read of some the interrogation methods and some of then made make me sick."

Ah! Souls.

[clarice]

Actually, I think the CIA was on its way out when the DNI slot was created. Wonder how long it'll take that sharp tack Panetta to figure that out.

[Original MikeS]

These politically motivated actions clearly establish the Justice Department as an organ of political power for the Democratic Party.

The next Attorney General will have to investigate Holder, or... Congress has the power to impeach cabinet members. Secretary of War William Belknap, was impeached in 1876.

[Appalled]

JMH:

Getting the CIA under some kind of adult supervision is a pretty worth goal, don't you think? Bet you thought that back in the Valerie Plame days...

Personally, I do not like the whole torture investigation business. If you are ging to do this to small fry for infractions that don't seem that terrible, their lawyers are going to deag in Cheney, Woo, etc etc. It's a back door approach to the big terror follies Holder seems to want and can't get via a direct approach. And once again, normal folks trying to do their jobs get squished, because the big boys have some big political obsession they are persuing.

[Frau Skeptisch]

What about all the loyal CIA who helped in the war against the evil Boooosh administration? No 'Get Out of Jail or Skip the Investigation' cards?

[hit and run]

TM:
It sounds like the sort of non-politicized Justice Dept we want - then the next Administration can investigate the voter intimidation case that Holder's team chose to drop.

The fact that we make these arguments today, as well we should, will be used against us when the next administration hints it might consider investigating Holder.

"But you said it was polticization of the DOJ to investigate past decisions that the previous administration made! Hypocrites! You're only doing this for partisan political gain, not for justice!!!"

And the Republicans will back down.

[Jane]

Getting the CIA under some kind of adult supervision is a pretty worth goal, don't you think?

And you think Obama can accomplish that? Based on what exactly - cash for clunkers? My guess is he pulls a Jamie Gorelik only about 100 x worse.

[bishop]

Their job was to stop attacks on this country and even major attacks against American installations abroad, to understand
that,would be an adult view

[Ignatz]

--Getting the CIA under some kind of adult supervision is a pretty worth goal, don't you think?--

Actually it has been supervised by adults for the last thirty years, for the most part, and a good portion of the grunts on the ground and at the lower levels seem relatively serious. It's the entrenched and politicized mid and upper level bureaucracy that needs a thorough hosing.

[JM Hanes]

"Getting the CIA under some kind of adult supervision is a pretty worth goal, don't you think? Bet you thought that back in the Valerie Plame days..."

Now there's a surprise -- Appalled espies yet another teachable moment, based on a presumption of hypocrisy that doesn't quite dare to speak its name. I'll play.

Bet you discipline your children in preference to throwing them out of the house...

[Rob Crawford]

I shouldn't laugh but I can't help it. We have psychologically damaged the detainees by pretending we are going to use a drill on them and apparently we damaged them for life by blowing cigar smoke in their face. The same people who plot and plan mass killings. And carry them out.

Yes -- all this concern for the mental well-being of people who believe stoning to death is the proper way to treat a rape victim.

[Rob Crawford]

Ya know, adult supervision of the CIA would be a good thing. Problem is, I don't see any adults in the Obama administration.

[DebinNC]

Reminder...Obama put a provision in Porkulus giving a WH appointee headed panel the power to stop any IG investigations they don't like.

[Jane]

Reminder...Obama put a provision in Porkulus giving a WH appointee headed panel the power to stop any IG investigations they don't like.

Reminders like that make me want to throw in the towel. We've got the dirtiest anti-American administration in history and the press is egging them on.

[clarice]

" the IG report also refutes the claim made by Nancy Pelosi in her infamous May press conference that she was never told about waterboarding by the CIA in fall 2002. (Pelosi went on to say that the CIA lies to Congress "all the time"). According to the IG report, the agency briefed the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committees — that includes Speaker Pelosi — in the fall of 2002, as well as in February and March of 2003, and continued to do so thereafter.

The IG report states that none of the congressional participants — that includes Speaker Pelosi — expressed any concerns about the EITs or the program itself.

Unless we're resigned to the premise that it's routine for the Speaker of the House to lie to the American people about matters of national security, this is pretty serious stuff. CIA interrogators are facing the prospect of financially ruinous legal fees while a special prosecutor investigates their actions. Eric Holder may prosecute these individuals for taking actions that members of congress — that includes Speaker Pelosi — not only knew about, but that didn't concern them.
"

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDdhNzVkODViMTc0OTA3MGY5ODEwZWU5Yjc0NWY2Yzk=>Pelosi is a damned liar

Since the Post and NYT can't move away from what the Obama and Kennedy kids are wearing/doing to ask Pelosi--maybe Jane will.

[Ignatz]

Not sure why, but this subtitled video of Joe cocker at Woodstock struck me as hilarious. Saw the link at Barry Ritholz's econ blog.

[Fresh Air]

Egging them on right off a cliff...

[PeterUK]

Clarice.
Pelsi is a lefty. "The ends justify the means". Eventually the means become the ends.

[hit and run]

Ignatz, you just made my night.

[clarice]

Jane--get the IG report and bet Dick that the IG found she'd been thoroughly and repeatedly vetted on waterboarding and raised no objections in 2002, 2003 and thereafter.

Then ask which of Boston's white shoe firms--so quick to offer to defend Gitmo detainees will offer their services pro bono to the CIA agents who saved their butts.

[Extraneus]

We should probably hope that they really try to prosecute CIA patriots.

Obama's and the Democrats' polls are dropping faster than ever in history. I never bought the argument that giving them the power would be giving them the "rope to hang themselves," but it's happening.

I only hope that when they're taken out in 2010 and 2012, the new president will quietly make things right. And if that president is someone who tempted them to expose their true ugliness, well it couldn't get any better than that.

Go after Cheney, Holder. Make his day.

[Jane]

Ignatz,

I was all ready to reminisce but that was so much better.

Clarice,

Dick's standard answer: "Time out! The ins protect the ins."

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

It seems to me there are many people of both the left and right who can't understand the necessity of enhanced interrogation techniques against infiltrators, saboteurs, spies and terrorists (or those who help them). Most of these are from the generations who have not endured conflicts like WWII within their borders.

These fastidious souls see as inappropriate any techniques that would be improper in police stations and federal criminal facilities within the US. Our parents and grandparents were nowhere near as fastidious, and if they had been, our common language my be a combination of Japanese, German and Italian.

When people are condemning as torture tactics that have been commonplace in fraternity initiation "hell weeks" for over 150 years, it is hard for me to take them seriously.

Which is another way of saying I think Holder and those who are pushing him to "investigate" are wusses.

[bgates]

Ignatz, that was good.

I saw somebody is making yet another movie about Woodstock. Which made me wonder how a movie about Guy Lombardo's historic first-ever performance of "Auld Lang Syne" would have gone over in 1969.

[Pops]

It would be nice when Eric Holder is showing his replacement around the office, his replacements thanks him for his courtesy and then sits him down, reads him his rights and asks him if he'd like an attorney present, while we go through you actions during your tenure day by day, hour by hour and let's just see what we may find....

[PeterUK]

bgates,
It wouldn't the sixties were the the Zero.Although the major performers were influence by the fifties,for those reaching puberty in the sixties,nothing came before.

[clarice]

"Time out! The ins protect the ins."
WRF does that mean? He doesn't want to accept the I.G.'s finding of fact? That means the certainly more one sided and lacking in independent supporting evidence account of Pelosi would be given credence over the I.G's.

In other words--he'll just pick and choose what side he chooses and ignore all factual findings to the contrary.

[clarice]

**WTF*

[Mike Huggins]

Also, what about the men or woman who conducted these interrogations? How do you think they are feeling? Are they "tortured" souls?

And what about the feelings of our minotaurs, too!!!! Prick them, do they not bleed?

[Melinda Romanoff]

clarice-

welcome to Chicago, that, is a classic Rahm move. Just like the new Pres. of the NY Fed, which was announced right after the Bernanke reappointment. I give you, Denis Hughes, President of the NY AFL-CIO.

[Jane]

Clarice,

Dick doesn't do facts because he knows more about politics in his little finger than I will ever know - at least that's what he tells me.

It would be nice when Eric Holder is showing his replacement around the office, his replacements thanks him for his courtesy and then sits him down, reads him his rights and asks him if he'd like an attorney present

If we get our country back, every last one of them will spend the rest of their lives at Gitmo.

Give em a prayer mat.

[clarice]

Since the rest of us lack Dick's prescience and inherent knowledge we need facts so maybe he might offer some to those of us without his magical endowments.

[Extraneus]

Dick is just practice for Jane until she gets her own show, I think.

[PeterUK]

What is left out of the mix,is the spirit of the "New Age". An atavistic movement having its genesis in the sixties developing in the 70s and 80s. Liberals imbibed,or rather smoked,this heady mix,it has lodged in their brains ever since.
The apogee of all this is President Bafflegab Obama. Don't look at the quality feel the energy.

[clarice]

I hope so--in the meantime remember what your arithmetic teacher said,"Show your work."

[pagar]

Is there any type of qualifications for the Head of the New York Fed? Google isn't showing much.

[Melinda Romanoff]

clarice-

OT, I was mistaken, it's Alcione, and his place is the Park Cafe (LUN). Best night with my brother in 25 years, sat with Alcione, arguing, and tasting wine, until 1 AM (with lights off, just candles). A memorable night.

Uh oh, now I'm hungry again.

[Ignatz]

--Is there any type of qualifications for the Head of the New York Fed? Google isn't showing much.--

1. Cheat on your taxes.
2. Be a union thug.

[Melinda Romanoff]

pagar-

The Ny Fed prez is the third guaranteed seat at the FOMC ( Federal Open Market Committee ), which determines overnight borrowing rates for the country's member banks. They control two of these, the "Fed Funds" rate, which is between member banks, not us schlubs, and the "discount" rate, to which most banks add 3% and call it your "prime loan rate".

The NY Fed presidency is, ordinarily, the "Wall Street" chair, because they have to watch over Wall Street. Used to be the "Mechamic" chair as well, because they had to know how things worked, financially.

Obviously, the legislative requirement is a much more critical role nowadays. They're going to get their permanent financing every way they can, it looks like.

[Rob Crawford]

What is left out of the mix,is the spirit of the "New Age". An atavistic movement having its genesis in the sixties developing in the 70s and 80s. Liberals imbibed,or rather smoked,this heady mix,it has lodged in their brains ever since.

The "New Age" crap has much, much older origins. Much of it can be traced back at least to the 1800s.

[Melinda Romanoff]

RC-

Might it be like trying to recreate paganism without any written guidelines?

That's how it looked, and often smelled, to me.

[pagar]

Thanks, Melinda. I'm just having a hard time visualizing a AFL-CIO head being qualified for that position.

[jimmyk]

The Ny Fed prez is the third guaranteed seat at the FOMC

Just a point of clarification: Hughes was named Chairman of the Board of Directors of the NY Fed. The President is still Bill Dudley (formerly of--what else--Goldman Sachs), who took over after Turbo Timmy. It is pretty amazing that a union thugchief is Chairman of the Board. Usually it's a banker or corporate leader (past chairs have been people like Sandy Weil or Gerald Levin).

[Melinda Romanoff]

pagar-

You, and most anyone concerned (not Goldman Sachs, they're "special"), can't figure it out regulatory wise, unless the "regulations" are about to be a tad more specific than systemic.

Not that a mere Chicagoan would see any risk in a venture such as this.

Bernanke and Kohn better watch their backs. Although, to be fair, Kohn will get replaced June 23 of next year, as do over half the Fed Governors, who rotate sitting on the FOMC.

I see no problems ahead.

[Pofarmer]

Melinda

You aren't giving me great reasons to be optimistic here. The radio is saying the housing market has bottomed and it's movin' on up and things are going to be GREAT. Haven't you heard, we've "turned the corner" and all that.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Po-

Given that there's an $8K first time buyers credit, a mortgage foreclosure moratorium, short sales are almost done washing through, and the banks that have foreclosed are only showing 1/6 of them as "for sale", no, no, I see no reason not to be optimistic.

And, no, I don't watch baseball, so the Cubs do not effect my emotions, Da Bears are a whole 'nother story though.

[Pofarmer]

There's a baseball team in Chicago?

Who knew?

[PD]

There's a baseball team in Chicago?

Yeah, the Flyers.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Yeah, someone hinted there might even be two!

Go figure!

And jimmyk, I still think that it's going to be a replacement for Dudley, in due course.

(Scratching head, what did I read that said it was the Presidency???...)

[Melinda Romanoff]

PD-

Good one!

At least the Hawks are climbing out of the Wirtz' basement storage.

I've just had a huge honking power surge vs. the new modem so I'm shutting down.

G'night all.

[PD]

Yeah, someone hinted there might even be two!

Okay, okay. The Flyers and the ThunderBolts.

[maryrose]

Chicago's time will come. Living in a suburb of Cleveland I also hope for our future championship. Though trading Cliff Lee has to be possibly one of the dumbest moves by our franchise. Almost akin to trading Rocky Colavito back in the day. Back to Chicago: I'll never forget that fan catch interference
during the playoffs that stunned everyone into silence...

[PeterUK]

Rob Crawford.
Indeed,much of it came from Rousseau in the 18th and the later Victorian Romantic. The hippie dress code was very Pre-Raphaelite.
The Resurrection began in the sixties,and whilst the art school brigade might have had some historical knowledge the majority of the followers were followers of fashion not historical movements.
It could be seen as a reaction to an industrialised society,but I believe it was the economic freedom which allowed young people self indulgence. Certainly,the sixties saw the independent sub group teenager appear,the sub genus student having unprecedented leisure time and social freedom compared to their parents.
There are very tenuous links to the intellectual ideas of the 18th century.
Listen to Obama or the Greenies.

[Appalled]

JMH:

I sometimes wonder whther you have had a mixed feeling or perplexed reaction to a package of good things and bad things in any political event. Certainly, it seems that you believe that if Obama does something, it must be bad ipso facto. In this case, I really do not mind that the CIA is losing some clout to others, but loathe the fact that small fry are getting the shaft just so Holder can pander to the moral preening segment of the Vanity Fair left.

I think that there was a great craving, here, during the dark days of the Plame case, to bring the CIA under some kind of executive branch control. If Bush had done what Obama has done -- bring Al Qaeda interrogations under executive branch control -- most of you all would have cheered and the folks who are happy with what Obama is doing now would have gotten all froth mouthed wondering what Cheney was up to in his undisclosed location.

The CIA has become its own little self-perpetuating fiefdom in Washington. What they did during the Bush administration -- leak stuff to force changes in policy -- was reprehensible and diminished executive branch power. It is neither surprising or wrong that an active executive (which Obama is) is wanting to make the CIA less able to sabotage policy through leaks. Nor do I find that to be wrong.

AS for hypocracy -- I am not accusing anyone of that, realy. But I am suggesting that it is not government structure or power that troubles you nearly as much as who holds the reigns.

[bishop]

Why, Appalled, would you change something that worked. Who compromised these programs,
the interrogators, or their oversightpeople.
Why would they put in office, someone who has a long record of being against what the agency does in Panetta. That being said, this new White House unit, will be totally
useless, than again like the DHS report shows, that's not their area of concerns.

[Ignatz]

--Why, Appalled, would you change something that worked.--

Preciesly bishop.
The CIA finally does something right and Barry wants to dismantle that part of it and leave the rest of the dysfunction intact.
The problem with the CIA is not who holds the reins or even it defending its turf. The problem is management is sclerotic, ossified and politicized.
However, it needs a house cleaning by adults, for adults. Any fumigating by the Little Rascals presently in office will only exchange active marxists for the present slothful libtards.

[macphisto]

Peter:

well put regarding the precursors of "hippie." for "New Age," which came later, throw in Madame Blavatsky and her Ancient Old Religion invented in the 1890s. in the early 80s the New Agers--at least here on the US West Coast--didn't even try to hide the neo-paganism, they wore it on their sleeves.

[boris]

"loathe the fact that small fry are getting the shaft just so Holder can pander to the moral preening ..."

That looks an awful lot like one version of sanctimony impugning another.

"there was a great craving, here, during the dark days of the Plame case, to bring the CIA under some kind of executive branch control"

Not apparent to me. It appeared there were career CIA elements willing to oppose the Bush admin from a semi-protected (by secrecy) zone based on their own worldview on foreing policy. That was wrong, unethical, and destructive.

... But I do not consider that statement to similar to yours.

[bgates]

It is neither surprising or wrong that an active executive (which Obama is) is wanting to make the CIA less able to sabotage policy through leaks.

And Obama's tactic to make the CIA less able to leak is to prosecute interrogators about whom information has been leaked. How's that work?

I'm not an active executive, but I think if I had the DOJ at my disposal and I wanted to prevent the CIA from sabotaging me through illegal leaks, I would prosecute people who leaked information illegally. Is that too Byzantine, appalled?

[Appalled]

What the CIA did worked four or five years ago. The enhanced interrogations pretty much shut down three or four years ago.

Frankly, if I were someone like Sullivan or Greenwald, I'd be more worried because Obama probably has more lee way to enhance them some interrogations under the new structure than the old.

Again, I don't mind the executive playing bureaucratic games to take down the CIA a few pegs. They need less power than they have.

[Appalled]

bgates:

Considering that Bush never prosecuted the leakers that were killing him (including Ms. Plame) and that there has been no movement to prosecute those leaking the briefing notes taken at the meeting with the charming and evevecent speaker Pelosi, it seems that prosecuting someone for leaking is, for whatever reason, not really possible. Heck, even Patrick Fitzgerald couldn't manage a prosecution for leaking, and if he can't do it, nobody can....

[bishop]

Well Greenwald stuck up for a real fascist like Matt Hale, and has supported the Salafi
element, so I don't think he'd have a real objection to that. Sullivan has plumbed depths I didn't think were possible, a year ago,

[bgates]

Considering that Bush never prosecuted the leakers....it seems that prosecuting someone for leaking is, for whatever reason, not really possible

Ah. Whereas the prosecution of the interrogators is simply continuing a 5-year effort begun by career prosecutors during the Bush administration, and not at all a politicized reopening of closed cases. Got it.

[bgates]

Let's buy into your fantasy that the Obama regime is constrained by the judgement of careerists wrt to leakers. Even if that option is foreclosed, how does prosecution of interrogators dissuade leaking?

[bishop]

There wasn't anything illegal in the Libby case, otherwise Armitage would have been in the dock. Leaking actual techniques of intelligence gathering, personnel involved, that would nor be covered by Section 798?
Who's going to prosecute Pelosi, the US Atty
for San Francisco, in this administration.

[Appalled]

bgates:

I think the prosecution of interrogators is a sop to left, and not related to the other maneuvers.

[MayBee]

I think the prosecution of interrogators is a sop to left, and not related to the other maneuvers.

So you acknowledge they will open a criminal prosecution for political purposes while arguing they are right to be getting more control?

What am I missing?
Shouldn't we want people who will engage in political prosecutions to have *less* control?

[justonebullet]

The present Justice Department is sheer mockery of the law.

[Appalled]

MayBee:

I prefer the checks and balances of our system to operate in the way the Constitution intended. Which means, in this case, the constraints on Obama ought to be the Courts, a fearful Congress that prefers reeelection to subservience, and his diminishing chances for reelection.

The CIA, as it stands now, look to be responsible to nobody but themselves. That's not good.

[bishop]

The CIA was rarely a rogue elephant, either in the pre Church Committee or before.
Presidents wanted Lumumba, Castro, Trujillo
gone, they did it, or at least tried to,Do we need more covert operations in the future

[pagar]

I haven't seen this posted on JOM.

Obama's war on American sovereignty

IMO, it is an excellent case for closing the UN on American soil, and insuring that not a enough dime goes to that Anti American ripoff.

[boris]

"The CIA, as it stands now, look to be responsible to nobody but themselves. That's not good"

Seems to me that can be said of just about every government agency. So I'm calling that a deflection from the problem of agency careerists who often work against Republican administrations (with impunity).

IMO the problem is not any particualr agency ... it is a cultural "enlightenment" that sees conservative Republicans as unenlightened and too dangerous to be in power.

Forgive me for not nodding in approval that what should be a useful agency is going to be rendered impotent by a clueless arrogant chowderhead. My "annoyance" is with the subversive and delusional careerists (not restricted to the CIA) who shirked or betrayed their duties during the Bush terms. It does not extend to the institutions themselves.

Further ... those subversive careerists are the ones most likely to be promoted to positions of greater potential mischief by the chowderhead in chief.

[boris]

Another perfect example how those "looking out for both sides" give the game away every chance they get.

[MayBee]

The CIA, as it stands now, look to be responsible to nobody but themselves. That's not good.

Joe Wilson went to Congress- or at least Dem Congressmen- and got their protection from Bush before he told his story publicly.

There's your checks and balances of the day.

[MayBee]

Now comes word that the CIA will pay officers' legal expenses. We are paying for every aspect of this. Goody.

Too bad Libby didn't get that same deal, eh?

Next, I expect those on the left to start demanding Obama not issue pardons to anyone convicted.

[First as Comedy, then as Tragedy.]

Not to mention, MayBee, that the whole top of the career Justice Department hid behind, and did the bidding of Schumer, while the duly elected and charged Executive was hogtied by same Senator? Check, dear Appalled One, and Balances? Say wot?

This regime by the Dems and media is a sad, even tragic, mess. Where have all the flowers gone?
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