DEMS BLOW IT AGAIN – AT 9:46 A.M. ET: Democrats have apparently been taken by surprise by the blowback over their biased attack on the CIA. The reaction signals to the Dems that they may not have it all that easy in 2016. From Jen Rubin at the Washington Post:
I strongly suspect Senate Democrats did not anticipate the events that played out after the release of their much-criticized report on CIA interrogation tactics. Sure, the gory details dominated headlines and delighted the antiwar left, but then conservatives and some Democrats — and most telling, current and former CIA officials — struck back.
We have seen a parade of former CIA directors, deputy directors and even former senator Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) blast release of the report and the shoddy attempt to pronounce upon the agency without interviewing those who knew the most. That story — condemn first and don’t ask questions because you might get an answer you don’t like — has resonated. All of this has cast the Democratic Party once again as the party that’s weak on (and unserious about) defense.
Even worse, the president won’t say (!) whether he agrees with his own handpicked CIA director, John Brennan, that the information gained through enhanced interrogation techniques was useful, and he won’t criticize or endorse the Senate Democrats. Now, there’s a resounding vote of no support for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
The White House spokesman has turned himself in knots as to whether the findings are correct; they, of course, conflict with a prior inspector general report.
And to top it off, Brennan went to the press to hold forth on the report. He offered an entirely reasonable conclusion: “Detainees who were subjected to EITs [enhanced interrogation techniques] at some point during their confinement subsequently provided information that our experts found to be useful and valuable. The cause and effect relationship between the use of those EITs and useful information subsequently provided by the detainees is unknown and unknowable.” Indeed, one cannot tell whether eventually we would have obtained the information about Osama bin Laden and additional terrorist plots without the information. What we do know is that we got actionable information that was used to foil deadly attacks.
That strikes at the heart of Feinstein’s hatchet job. Brennan turned the knife a little more: “For someone to say that there was no intelligence of value, of use that came from those detainees…I think that lacks any foundation at all.” Take that, senator.
COMMENT: The left, collectively, acts like a bully. And the only way to defeat a bully is to confront him. I'm a bit surprised at Feinstein, who's generally been known as a reasonable, responsible senator. I think she went over the top this time, possibly out of personal anger. There is talk that she's going to retire. It's time.
December 12, 2014 |