The Redhunter

It was the Democrats who thought they were so smart and clever when they wanted to institute their "truth commissions," with which they wanted to investigate the Bush Administration. After their victories in 2006, they got on their moral high horse and thought they'd found truth, justice, and the American way. They've gotten nothing but worse since this past election. They thought they'd show how righteous they were and how evil the Bush Administration was, and although it was too late for a Watergate II they thought for sure they'd be able to send a few people to jail, and if they really got lucky the American people would turn on the Republicans in a fashion that would give them FDR 1932 style majorities in Congress.

As I explained earlier this week, the truth is that they were in on this just as much as the Republicans were in the days after 9-11. They too were worried about another attack of spate of attacks and wanted to do everything they could to protect the country. But then the politics of the situation changed and their nutjob leftist base rose up and like a drunk going back to the bottle they submitted to their worst instincts.

Unfortunately for them, the truth has a way of getting out. And as it's become clear that they too thought that Saddam had reams of WMD, they too knew and approved of our use of waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Every time there is a national security emergency our leaders take measures that are later said to have gone too far. Indeed, it is not just our leaders who do this, but those of all nations throughout history. When the emergency is ongoing, the threat appears larger, and "what if's" loom large. Once it is over, it is easy to look back and second guess, as the threat always appears smaller. The difference this time is that the opposition party is seeking criminal sanctions against those who were in power when the crisis appeared to be at it's height.

I use "appeared" for a reason; the threat is hardly over. The left thinks that the whole threat of terrorism was overblown, that it was a one-time event that with low probability of reoccurance. They see it this way because they want to define the threat as narrowly as possible, as coming only from al Qaeda. But as I have demonstrated here a zillion times, the threat is much greater than al Qaeda, and indeed much greater than terrorism alone. We face a jihadist threat from Wahabbists, the Muslim Brotherhood, Khomeinists, and to a lesser extent the Deobandists. A "creeping sharia," coupled with dramatic demographic changes, threaten to overtake the West.

Back To The Story

The whole story is too fast moving and is getting too complicated for me to relay in full here, but here are a few tidbits

Here's some background on some of what Stewart talks about. From yesterday on Fox News:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly was told in February 2003 by her intelligence aide, Michael Sheehy, that waterboarding was used on CIA terror detainee Abu Zubaydah, directly contradicting Pelosi's account that she had never been informed of the technique's use.

According to a report, Sheehy attended a briefing with Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., in February 2003 and discussed the CIA's use of waterboarding.

When the aide told Pelosi waterboarding had actually been used on the Al Qaeda terrorist, she didn't object because she was not personally briefed on the matter, an unnamed source confirmed to CNN.

Pelosi then supported a letter drafted by Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and sent to the Bush administration, raising concerns over the technique, the network reported.

What in tarnation difference does it make whether she was the one personally briefed or not? If waterboarding is the humongous outrage that she and other Democrats say it is, then oughtn't she have raised the roof? And she couldn't have objected that much if all she did was "support" a letter sent by someone else.

Further as Michael Goldfarb asks at TWS:

Just so we can get this straight, it's only now that Pelosi has decided the CIA lied to her, years after the controversy began and weeks after this particular controversy began? Or even giving Pelosi the benefit of the doubt about that first briefing, Sheehy still told her just a few months later, in early 2003, that she was lied to, and as minority leader, she did nothing? She didn't look into it, didn't raise it with George Tenet, didn't even write a letter protesting the CIA's conduct? It's ludicrous.

She's only objecting now for political gain. She has to satisfy the Movon.org and Daily Kos crowd.

via The Weekly Standard

MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell: "Speaker Pelosi came out today and essentially when asked if the CIA is lying, she said, 'they mislead us all the time.' Do you agree with that? Does the CIA mislead Congress all the time?"

Senator Joe Lieberman: "No, on that specific point, I totally disagree. You have to have confidence in the CIA. And over the 20 years I've been here, I've been briefed constantly by the CIA and I'd say that they've told me the truth, as they see it."

Wonderful. The leftists in Congress called Petraeus a liar, and now they say that the CIA misleads them "all the time." And they wonder why some question their patriotism.

But Pelosi ought to be careful. As Pete Wehner asks at Commentary Magazine:

Accusing America's intelligence agency of knowingly misleading a Member of Congress, and particularly a Member of the House Intelligence Committee, is quite an explosive charge. She better be able to prove it. And if she is lying -- as Porter Goss, then ranking Republican on the House Committee who later served as C.I.A. Director, seems to believe -- there will be an enormously high price for her to pay.

We're going to see what other Democrats do. Will they defend her or let her hang out to dry? Majority Leader Steny Hoyer waffled himself when confronted.

I'll let Michael Goldfarb at TNS have the last word, since I suspect he's going to be proven right:

The truly scary thing is that Pelosi is only marginally more responsible in this her attempts to goad the CIA. One of the hardest lessons for Republicans over the last eight years was that the CIA would do what it wanted when it wanted. It would leak damaging information as it pleased and to whatever effect it desired. An agency that was in the business of destabilizing foreign governments could easily use those same tricks against its own masters here in DC. Liberals think that Cheney had to gin up all this intelligence for the war in Iraq -- why on earth would he have to do that unless the CIA wouldn't give him what he wanted? Or how about the 2007 NIE, does the left imagine that this document was produced by a bunch of hopped-up neocons at CIA?

If the Democrats think they're going to win a fight against the CIA, we should wish them luck, but there is great irony here. As any Republican in the national security business will tell you, the CIA is not on our side--it's on its own side. These people actually were out to get the Bush administration. Democrats, out of sheer stupidity, are picking a fight they can't win.

Perhaps, but either way I have a feeling this is going to be fun to watch.

Friday Morning Update

And from today's Washington Times

The CIA briefed top Democrats and Republicans on the congressional intelligence committees more than 30 times about enhanced interrogation techniques, according to intelligence sources who said the lawmakers tacitly approved the techniques that some Democrats in Congress now say should land Bush administration officials in jail.

Between 2002 and 2006, the top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees "each got complete, benchmark briefings on the program," said one of the intelligence sources who is familiar with the briefings.

"If Congress wanted to kill this program, all it had to do was withhold funding," said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the closed-door briefings.

Those who were briefed included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia and Rep. Jane Harman of California, all Democrats, and Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama and Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, all Republicans.

This is not exactly how the Democrats thought this would play out.