A new poll finds half of all Americans support the use of torture during interrogations. Plus, the Taliban kill 132 school children in a senseless killing spree.
National Review's Jim Geraghty joins host Greg Corombos. Today's topics: Americans largely see through the partisan report from Senate Democrats, the hostage crisis in Sydney, and Greenpeace tramples on the Nazca Lines in Peru for a PR stunt.
Sen. Feinstein lives up to Rolling Stone's standards
Feinstein and her staff did not interview a single CIA official involved in the interrogation program. Not one. As the senator's Web page notes: "The committee could not conduct its own interviews because of a simultaneous DOJ investigation into the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program."
That is "nonsense," say former CIA directors Michael Hayden, George Tenet and Porter Goss, who published a response with former deputy directors John McLaughlin, Albert Calland and Stephen Kappes in the Wall Street Journal last week. They point out that Justice Department investigations were completed two years ago and "never applied to six former CIA directors and deputy directors, all of whom could have added firsthand truth to the study."
No one on the committee spoke to John Rizzo, former chief legal officer at the CIA, or to Jose Rodriguez, who ran the interrogation program. Not only were they not under investigation, both have also written memoirs discussing the program.
The fact that Feinstein is misleading reporters about this should be a major red flag for the media. If she can't even tell the truth about why she failed to interview any CIA officials for their report, how can anyone trust the honesty of the report itself?
Also read:
Pew poll: Majority says CIA interrogation methods after 9/11 were justified, 51/29
MSNBC's Chris Matthews Downplays Islamist Element of Sydney Hostage Taking
National Review's Patrick Brennan joins host Greg Corombos. Today's topics: Trey Gowdy interrogates Jonathan Gruber, Bob Kerrey slams the Senate's highly partisan CIA report, and telling tales about the Dear Leader's temper tantrums.
Brennan's reversal: Enhanced interrogation saved lives
Nearly two years ago, John Brennan faced a confirmation hearing in the friendly, Democrat-controlled Senate, but not one entirely ready to rubber-stamp his nomination to become CIA Director after David Petraeus' abrupt departure. The Senate Intelligence Committee pressed Brennan for his views on Bush-era enhanced interrogation techniques during his tenure as deputy CIA Director, to which he had previously given mild support. Brennan dutifully retreated from his previous position, claiming that a read of the panel's draft report had given him pause. "I don't know what the truth is," Brennan told the panel and said that he now questioned his previous briefings on the matter.
That should have given Brennan a wide opening to embrace the report from the panel's Democratic majority yesterday. Instead, Brennan reversed himself — again — and defended his agency, insisting that the information gathered from EITs stopped terrorist attacks and saved lives:
Now that he leads the CIA, Brennan has returned to his original conclusion: the truth is on his agency's side. In a statement responding to the public release of the report's official summary Tuesday, Brennan defended his agency — and the fruits of severe interrogation practices.
Enhanced interrogation techniques "did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives," Brennan said, citing an unreleased internal CIA review.
"The intelligence gained from the program," he added, "was critical to our understanding of al Qaeda and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day."
That steps on the message that Democrats wanted to send yesterday — that the Bush era had nothing to do with them, and that any intelligence wins on Barack Obama's watch were his alone. That's the entire point of this exercise, after all. Dianne Feinstein and her panel pushed the report out before the Republican majority that voters just elected could stop them from releasing their cherry-picked conclusions.
That's not just my opinion on the matter. It's also the opinion of Bob Kerrey, former Democratic Senator from Nebraska, a one-time presidential contender, and most importantly a member of the Senate Intelligence panel during the years in question. Kerrey took to the pages of USA Today to scold his former colleagues for their partisan and political attack on the CIA...
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Maybe it's a blessing in disguise most of the press has ignored Gruber's comments before now
Gruber Showcases Democrats' Own '47 Percent' Philosophy
National Review's Jim Geraghty joins host Greg Corombos. Today's topics: John Kerry demands a delay of the Senate's CIA report to get security ready, the report's dubious premise, and dangerous drones at TGI Friday's.
NBC foreign affairs reporter: Interrogation report "rewriting history and scapegoating"
Is the report from the Democratic majority on the Senate Intelligence Committee on post-9/11 interrogations a "badge of honor," as Joe Biden put it — or an attempt to scapegoat the CIA for doing what it was asked to do? NBC's Richard Engel told Ronan Farrow that it's much more the latter, allowing the political leadership in the Bush administration and Congress off the hook. It also curiously doesn't address the interrogation programs in the military, which leaves the CIA "held out to dry," as Engel's sources tell him:
"So many people knew what was going on. This wasn't a program that was over one or two weeks in a couple of dark sites," Engel told MSNBC's Ronan Farrow. "Everybody knew about it."
Engel said that some of those implicated told him that they were being used as scapegoats by the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by outgoing Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.).
"The CIA was asked to do this; was given authorizations to do this. And now many people involved are saying to me privately, 'Now we're being held out to dry. You asked us to do this, and now the world is coming down on top of it,'" Engel said.
If you're wondering why CIA officers are telling Engel that Senate Democrats left them twisting in the wind, you can read their explanation on the website they've set up to rebut the SSCI majority report.
Recall that the Department of Justice already did an investigation into these interrogations, a much-ballyhooed probe that was supposed to prosecute the people who supposedly besmirched America's reputation. The effort started in 2009 amid much posturing, but it ended a few weeks after Barack Obama ordered the hit on Osama bin Laden — which was only made possible because of the enhanced interrogations as noted above. The DoJ continued its prosecution of two cases where detainees were killed during interrogations, but all of the other criminal probes were summarily dropped — without any explanation from AG Eric Holder at the time.
This feels like a way for Democrats to take a second bite out of that apple, and one in which they can shield their own leadership from blame. Democrats can't go after the Republicans without going after the Congressional Democratic leadership that was in on the loop, so ipso facto the criticism gets limited to the CIA, with allegations that the agency lied to political leadership about the tactics and the results...
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Hayden rebuts 'torture' report: Senate's conclusion 'defies human comprehension'
An Interrogator Breaks His Silence
Greg welcomes guests Sonnie Johnson, Will Rahn and from last comic standing...Joe Machi!
Brett and Jim talk discuss Nancy Pelosi calling ObamaCare "beautiful," President Obama's agenda on coal restrictions, and a top CIA official gets outed by the White House.
Where's the Outrage Over CIA Outing?
The White House had egg on its face today. The news about the accidental outing of the name of the CIA station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan seemed to be just one more instance in a long list of incompetent episodes in a second term that is proving to be as problematic as even President Obama's sternest critics predicted. But the story of how the name of the station chief - which is, obviously, classified material, and was sent out in an email to thousands of journalists as one of a number of people briefing the president during his Memorial Day weekend trip to Afghanistan - should not be dismissed as merely the latest episode of the real life situation comedy that is Obama's second-term West Wing staff.
Coming as it did from an administration and a political party that has often sought to successfully criminalize the leaking of such information in the recent past, we have a right to ask where's the outrage about this colossal error? But more than that, this absurd tale also speaks volumes about the hypocrisy and selective prosecution policies pursued by the same people now telling us to move along because there's nothing to see.
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Exposure of CIA Station Chief Spotlights Administration's Immaturity
The Casualties of Obama's War on Coal
So what's the deal with John Brennan? Is he a sexist jerk or merely a hypocrite? This is the clown, you'll recall, who insists on referring to Jerusalem as "al-Quds." What's that about?
DAMAGE AT THE CIA
CIA director John Brennan apparently has decided to postpone and reverse the appointment of the first woman to head the CIA directorate of operations (which controls all covert operations and spying). According to press reports, Brennan has prevented the woman, whose identity is classified, from assuming the post because of her involvement with the interrogation and detention decisions after 9/11. According to the Post, she is already the acting head of the directorate and the most qualified person for the job, but Brennan has appointed an outside panel of former CIA officers to review her and other candidates for the job — something that the CIA has never done before.
This is a lot more serious than the hypocrisy of the diversity-crazed Obama administration's blocking the first woman for this most sensitive and important of intelligence positions. This is the very politicization of the CIA that conservatives feared when Brennan was nominated. Brennan has bent with the political winds, first defending the interrogations for producing intelligence that prevented future attacks, but — when Obama won the election — allegedly spreading the word that he was against the interrogations all along. Brennan carried out the drone program, which kills not just terrorists but innocent civilians. But now, because of the heat from the Left during his confirmation, Brennan is blocking the most qualified operative to head the CIA's key division because of her involvement in interrogations. Clearly, diversity only goes so far for the Left.
