The GOP's Stampeding Morons

There are people now, who are way out there on a limb. And I think they're just out there on a limb with the email they send us. Because I read it, and they are out there. I mean, out there in a scary place...I could read a hundred of them like this...I mean from today. People who are so amped up and so angry for reasons that are absolutely wrong, ridiculous, preposterous.
-Shepard Smith

Shepard Smith is an anchor for FOX News. In June, Smith made that statement on the air, after a shooting spree by a racist at the Holocaust Museum in DC that left one guard dead and after an anti-abortion extremist killed a doctor in Kansas. At the time, the right was busy freaking out of a draft report by the Department of Homeland Security detailing the threat of right wing extremism. Despite the fact that the report detailed concerns about groups that had already committed acts of domestic terrorism, Republicans and their allies thought it would be a good idea to pretend to be idiots and pretend to misunderstand the report. It was about them and they were all "right wing extremists." They didn't actually have any point in doing this, they just needed something to freak out about.

It's hard to take conservatives seriously these days. They play everything for political gain and they don't care about the consequences. A big chunk of their supporters are whackos, the arguments they make are incredibly stupid, and they offer zero alternatives. The GOP is like a crying baby who won't be consoled. They don't seem to know what they want, they just know they're unhappy. So they'll shriek and shriek and shriek until they stop being unhappy or just get tired of shrieking.

I'd like to use the example of a health care reform debate, but there isn't any health care reform debate. There are people on one side making reasoned arguments and people on the other pulling their hair out, jumping up and down, and shouting like lunatics. There is no debate here, just a tremendous effort to avoid having a debate. And the reason is clear; Republicans have no alternative and no argument.

Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post:

The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.

They don't care about debate, they don't care about health care, they don't care about anything other than hurting Democrats before the 2010 elections and crippling Obama before '12. None of this has a damned thing to do with health care reform. If you're having trouble making your premiums or getting care, you can just screw off. Getting Republicans back into power is the most important goddam thing in the goddam world.





And Pearlstein's charge of political terrorism just became more apt. When I first read it, I thought it was a poor choice of words -- what terrorism isn't political? -- and that the term he should've used was something along the lines of "rhetorical terrorists," in that he means they're trying to destroy debate. But that was before I saw this:

Raw Story:

In a stunning display of anger, Florida Republicans and fans of Fox editorialist Glenn Beck turned a Tampa healthcare forum into a "near riot," one reporter said, as they attempted to enter the meeting hall and drown out a group of community organizers and a member of congress.

There were at least two reports of violence at the forum.

"The meeting which was scheduled to begin at 6:00 at the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County drew hundreds of people who quickly began to overwhelm staff and event organizers at the front entrance," reported Tampa news station 10 Connects.

The channel added: "10 Connects photojournalist Kevin Carlson, [who was] inside the meeting reports at least one fist fight breaking out inside."

OK, it still probably isn't "terrorism" -- I, for one, fail to be terrified by a bunch of wingnuts behaving like spoiled, bawling infants -- but one thing it's definitely not is debate. We know the Republican base is dumber than stumps and the article tells us this is especially true of this crowd. According to the report, "[H]undreds of vocal critics turned out, many of them saying they had been spurred on through the Tampa 912 activist group promoted by conservative radio and television personality Glenn Beck. Others had received e-mails from the Hillsborough Republican party that urged people to speak out against the plan and offered talking points to challenge supporters."

There you go then, Glenn Beck fans. If that's not synonymous with "pack of morons" in your mind, you just haven't been paying attention. And, like Shepard Smith, Beck has seen the emails. He knows how crazy his audience is. Just days ago, Beck begged his viewers not to become violent, warning that Democrats would use that against the right. "If anyone thinks it would be a good idea to turn violent, think again," Beck said. "It would destroy the republic."

Damn. Now the republic's gone and got itself destroyed. I wonder what we should call the new country, now that the USA is sunk and gone forever?

Republicans and their media allies have failed to learn one lesson. And they've failed to learn it over and over and over. The Republican base isn't really all that smart and that makes them dangerous. They're a herd of cud-chewers and, once you get them stampeding, they're pretty much beyond your control. They frighten easily, mostly because of their jaw-dropping gullibility, and in their brainless panic, they'll trample even their Republican herders.

But a herd of morons doesn't debate -- mostly because they don't have the brains for it -- and zero debate is what they want. But if the GOP thinks that turning town hall meetings into brawls is good strategy, if they think being the party of the angry mob is smart politics, I think they'll find out that they've sorely miscalculated. No one likes this -- not even the stampeding morons.

When people are "so amped up and so angry for reasons that are absolutely wrong, ridiculous, preposterous," they make complete idiots of themselves -- before they finally turn violent. Like the McCain/Palin rallies, like the tea party protests, like the birther movement, this whole town hall goon squad thing is getting away from them and there's nothing, at this point, that the Republican party can do about it.

I wish I could take comfort in that, but what we need is debate, what we need is discussion. Health care premiums are rising faster than the rate of inflation and something has to be done. But the Republican party doesn't seem to care about that, all they seem to care about is getting idiots whipped up into a panic and setting them loose on our political system. That's not democracy, that's barely even politics.

It's definitely not good for Americans.

-Wisco


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Selling Mass Panic to Fools -- or 'Weimarketing'

The people in near-riot at congress members' public appearances are fools. Or, at least, gullible. People who believe that Barack Obama is going to kill their grandma don't really have it all together. Something is wrong upstairs and their internal BS detectors aren't lighting up to alert them to the obvious. The reason for this is that they've rewired their attics to keep the BS sensors from working -- like the birthers, the town hall goons believe what they believe because they want to believe it, not because what they believe is especially convincing. For them Barack Obama is Hitler, Stalin, and Dracula rolled into one. Nothing is too ridiculous, too absurd for them to believe, because the consequences of being wrong would be too great -- what if Obama really was Count HitlerStalin and no one believed it? No one wants that. So it's just safer to believe the worst, that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim illegal alien come here to kill your grandma. Really, who wants to take the risk of believing he's not?

But the Hitler outfit fits the right better than the left -- it always has. Authoritarian and prone to group-think, people on the right are most comfortable with believing they're the mainstream. And, with poll after poll showing they're not, they're confused. When people who tend toward group-think are confused, it's like a virus that infects them all. The more confused they become, the more frightened they become. And the more frightened they become, the more authoritarian they become. Things have to be a certain way and, if they're not, things have to be forced. Like other authoritarians in times past, their way is the only way and anyone who believes otherwise is the enemy of the "true" people, whether they call themselves "patriots" or "der volk." Anyone who doesn't agree with them on every single issue is an enemy of the state and must be corrected or stopped. Barack Obama doesn't agree with them, the Democrats don't agree with them, so Barack Obama and the Democrats must be stopped. As the right slips from the mainstream to the fringe, they don't see it as changing American opinions and values. They see it as America being taken over by anti-Americans.

Playing this terror-driven opposition to the president and Democrats is the Republican party. They haven't gone out of their way to disabuse the birthers and they've actually been promoting the "kill your grandma" lie. Truth is irrelevant to them because truth is the enemy of their argument. So they use lies and fear. The right's campaign against health care reform has been a campaign of the purest -- and worst -- propaganda; propaganda that appeals to fear and ignorance and hate. Call it the Weimarketing of health care reform opposition.





"Republicans on the Hill and the Republicans in the base seem to be operating under a bizarre assumption: he who throws the biggest tantrum wins," writes Steve Benin. "It's no way for a political system to operate." I'd change that to "it's no way for a good political system to work." Republicans don't seem particularly concerned about a good political system. The crowds at town halls are using the "heckler's veto" and shutting down debate by drowning out dissenting voices. But it's moving beyond that.

Talking Points Memo:

Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) will not be hosting any town hall events this August -- instead, he's making himself available to constituents for one-on-one meetings about health care reform -- and at least part of the reason is this: His offices have received threatening phone calls, including at least one direct threat against his life.

"We had no town hall events scheduled for the August recess anyway, but in light of everything that's happened -- we have received a threatening phone call in the D.C. office, there have been calls to the Raleigh office," said Miller communications director LuAnn Canipe, in an interview with TPM. The threatening call in question happened earlier this week.

"The call to the D.C. office was, 'Miller could lose his life over this,'" said Canipe. "Our staffer took it so seriously, he confirmed what the guy was saying. He said, 'Sir is that a threat?' and at that time our staffer was getting the phone number off caller ID and turning it over to the Capitol Police."

We've seen one congress member hung in effigy outside his office. Now another has been physically assaulted. If you've been wondering when these people were going to go too far, you can stop now. They already have.

And the Republicans, watching this happen, continue to pour gasoline on this fire. Not content to have these people in a frothing fit, they want it worse. The political discourse isn't stupid enough or ignorant enough yet. It has to get even dumber. And here we come to Sen. John Cornyn and a new paranoid conspiracy theory about Barack Obama -- that the president is building a massive enemies list.

It started -- as it always does -- with the pretense of stupidity. In pushing back against the smear campaigns, the White House wrote a blog post asking people to share the BS they're hearing about health care reform.

"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care," it said. "These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

"I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed 'fishy' or otherwise inimical to the White House's political interests," Cornyn wrote in a letter to the president. "By requesting that citizens send 'fishy' emails to the White House, it is inevitable that the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House. You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program. As Congress debates health care reform and other critical policy matters, citizen engagement must not be chilled by fear of government monitoring the exercise of free speech rights."

Cornyn obviously understands what's really going on here, but chooses to act like a gibbering moron because he thinks it's good politics. And the nuts, who also choose to believe what they want to believe, are eating it up.

"Can you believe it? President Obama and his radical community organizers at the White House want literally to 'keep track' of those who disagree with the government-run, potentially bankrupting health care bill, with its rationing of medical procedures to control costs, which Obama and Democrats in Congress are trying to ram through the system and into law..." reads a statement from right wing direct mail guru Richard Viguerie's spin lab. "Totalitarian regimes, such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, used similar tactics (without email, of course) to keep tabs on dissidents and other critics of those regimes."

Barack Obama is just like Count HitlerStalin! Of course, he knows his audience (as evidenced by the fact that he feels the need to point out that Hitler didn't have email) and he knows just how idiotic and terrified these people are willing to be. This deadly mix of gullibility and paranoia is spreading through the hive mind at practically the speed of light. Barack Obama, the secret illegal alien Muslim terrorist, is now building a huge database of critics so he knows whose grandmas need killing the most.

Now go get suitably terrified, go to a town hall, and totally freak out and make an ass of yourself. Shut down discussion, shut down debate, stop the enemies of America from imposing this Nazi socialist vampire stuff on der volk!

"God save us," writes Kevin Drum of Cornyn and Viguerie. "Before long we're going to have start inventing new words to describe these guys. My thesaurus is running dry."

How about "Weimarketeers?"

-Wisco


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The World According to John Bolton

We take a break from teabaggers in near-riot, people who believe Barack Obama is an illegal alien who hates white people, and the GOP alternative to health care reform to consider journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. After accidentally crossing the border between China and North Korea (or, perhaps, after being tricked into crossing it), they found themselves in the custody of what few would argue wasn't the most totalitarian state in the world. Charged with being in North Korea to launch a "smear campaign" against the regime, the two journalists were sentenced to twelve years of hard labor. You'd imagine that a North Korean labor camp would make a Stalinist gulag look like Club Med -- this was a virtual death sentence.

Ling and Lee were undoubtedly arrested to be used as pawns in a geopolitical chess game. And it's this fact that lends credibility to the theory that they were led across the border by North Korean agents masquerading as guides. That Laura Ling's sister Lisa had previously embarrassed the North Korean government probably didn't help matters any.

After four and a half months in a North Korean prison, Lee and Ling were given a pardon and released yesterday.

Agence France-Presse:

Bill Clinton has safely left Pyongyang with two US journalists after they were pardoned by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, a spokesman for the former US president said Tuesday.

“President Clinton has safely left North Korea with Laura Ling and Euna Lee. They are en route to Los Angeles where Laura and Euna will be reunited with their families,” Clinton’s spokesman Matt McKenna said.

North Korea said Clinton delivered a special message to Kim from US President Barack Obama during his historic trip, which followed acute tensions over the North’s nuclear and missile tests, but the White House denied this.

The families of the reporters were unsurprisingly "overjoyed" at the news. In fact, pretty much everyone was happy with the result -- with one glaring exception, former Bush ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.





In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Bolton called Clinton's trip "unwise." Later, after the news came that the journalists would be freed, Bolton doubled down and told FOX News that the outcome was "a classic case of rewarding bad behavior." Yeah, you figure that one out -- it doesn't make any sense to me. To someone who doesn't share Bolton's solid grasp of diplomacy and global politics, it would seem that the "reward" part of this is all on our side.

But what do I know. John Bolton's the expert here. His expertise is legend and his opinions are so well respected that Bush had to make him a recess appointment, because Bolton didn't stand a chance in hell of ever being confirmed by the Senate. It was part of the Bush strategy of always finding the person most perfectly unsuited for the job. If you were going to send an amabassador to the United Nations, you found the one person in America who hated the UN the most and thought it was a worthless and useless organization. That was John Bolton; a diplomat with no taste -- let alone talent -- for diplomacy.

"...Mr. Bolton's history of inflammatory statements about the UN would seem to make it more difficult for him to advance US interests at the UN. I am concerned about whether Mr. Bolton even believes the UN is a viable institution and a useful instrument of US foreign policy," then-Senator Barack Obama said in a floor statement opposing Bolton's nomination. "Saying that it wouldn't make a difference if you lop off ten floors of the UN building in New York isn't exactly the best way to earn people's respect and support -- whatever the context."

Closely tied to the Project for a New American Century, Bolton is unabashedly neocon. And this is a great moment to look back and consider how well out that mindset we are. Like Dick Cheney, Bolton is at heart a coward and all of his opinions are the result of a coward's overreaction. After all, North Korea has the bomb! And nations that pose even an entirely theoretical threat to the US must be crushed. It was Bolton, after all, who suggested that now would be a good time for Israel to bomb Iran -- because the disputed elections didn't result in a revolution. All those people out in the streets fighting for their rights? You know, the ones we're all supposed to be supporting?

Vaporize them. The only thing that matters is that Iran has the bomb! Which, of course, it doesn't.

Bolton's opinions of geopolitics, diplomacy, and foreign policy should be dismissed out of hand. Consider his record of success as US ambassador to the UN. During his term, we... Uhh... Umm...

I guess we didn't go to war with the moon. So there's that. Otherwise, I can't think of a single triumph of ambassadorial acumen we can pin like a medal on John Bolton's chest. Given his record, I can't come up with a single reason why we should give a crap what John Bolton thinks.

Well, other than to serve as a monument to the idiocy we've left behind. We tried it your way, John. It was a disaster. We're going to go in another direction now.

-Wisco


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Teabaggers II

At the end of July, Politico reported that congress members coming home to their districts were facing angry mobs at town hall meeting and listening sessions. The website reported "screaming constituents, protesters dragged out by the cops" and "congressmen fearful for their safety," as local town halls are taken over by "angry, sign-carrying mobs" who hate the idea of health care reform.

Are these spontaneous outbreaks of righteous anger from outraged citizens or just gullible chumps sent to scare the bejeezus out of congress critters? It's not really much of a question. Like the tea baggers and the birthers -- who both probably make up about 99% of the protesters -- these people couldn't organize a yard sale, let alone a nationwide campaign to shut down debate on health care reform. The big "tea party" protests were arranged by Republican operatives and special interest lobbyists and the word got out through infomercials on FOX News. These "grassroots" displays of citizen outrage had the distinct smell of astroturf. And the birthers? Well, they're just too stump-dumb to make a sandwich without step-by-step instructions. A big campaign to shout down debate on health care reform would be completely beyond them.

No, these people needed guidance here. And they got it.

Talking Points Memo:

...As Think Progress first reported, one tea-party friendly group has disseminated a strategy memo for other anti-reform and anti-government groups, outlining what they consider best-practices for protesters who plan to enter and disrupt town hall events hosted by members of Congress over the August recess--practices that, according to the memo, "could be useful to activists in just about any district where their Congressperson has supported the socialist agenda of the Democrat leadership in Washington."

Of course, the Republican party thinks this is just the best idea anyone ever had about anything. Stuck with their "party of no" label and offering no real ideas of their own, the GOP needs someone else to get out there and act like idiots, because doing it themselves is killing them.





In a very approving post at his blog, house GOP leader John Boehner writes, "Back home for the August recess, rank-and-file Democratic Members of the House are facing a backlash from their constituents, who are already fed up with Washington’s job-killing agenda and don’t support Democrats’ government takeover of health care."

The post is titled, "Democrats Face Angry Reaction Back Home on Health Care: Heartland Crowd Chants "Just Say No" to President Obama's Government Takeover of Health Care." I guess the "government takeover" part is the public option, which would be a government-run program that would compete with private insurers. You'd think a "government takeover of health care" would involve the government taking over the health care industry, but that's not the case here. Then again, expecting the Republicans to make sense these days is asking way too much -- every word is a dog whistle to the wingnut right. None of it has to be true, statements just have to contain buzzwords that freak out the chumps. If the GOP needs to step it up a bit, expect statements that read like "Government takeover Obama tax-and-spend big government socialism second amendment freedom 9/11!" As I say, it doesn't have to make any sense. That's why Sarah Palin talks that way.

And what's real the problem with a public option? Former Cigna insurance executive Wendell Potter explained it to PBS's Bill Moyers recently:

BILL MOYERS: Why is public insurance, a public option, so fiercely opposed by the industry?

WENDELL POTTER: The industry doesn’t want to have any competitor. In fact, over the course of the last few years, has been shrinking the number of competitors through a lot of acquisitions and mergers. So first of all, they don’t want any more competition period. They certainly don’t want it from a government plan that might be operating more efficiently than they are, that they operate. The Medicare program that we have here is a government-run program that has administrative expenses that are like three percent or so.

BILL MOYERS: Compared to the industry’s–

WENDELL POTTER: They spend about 20 cents of every premium dollar on overhead, which is administrative expense or profit. So they don’t want to compete against a more efficient competitor.

If government competes with the private sector, insurance companies find themselves facing a competitor who's as much as 700% more efficient. That stuff about the super-efficient private sector? Complete BS. Arguing in favor of what can barely be called a "health care system" that's so obviously failing is a loser. So Republicans aren't doing that. They're letting others do it.

"To the extent that Republicans are discussing healthcare, they’re relying on trite McCain-campaign talking points and old hands from the 1990s," writes Howard Dean. "In other words, they’ve outsourced the conversation to attack dogs and relinquished the serious debate about how to lower costs, increase access, and improve quality."

Those attack dogs are sicking their attack dogs on Democrats as they come home for summer recess. Blue Dog Democrats did Republicans a tremendous favor by pushing back a vote on a bill until after the recess and they're paying for it now. It's very likely that this stupid, stupid move will cost them the most. Associated Press reports that the GOP is targeting 70 house dems in what they see as vulnerable districts. According to the report, "Those targeted satisfy at least one of these requirements: They won less than 55 percent of the vote last year or they represent a district carried in 2008 by John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee." Democrats in reddish districts; i.e., centrists. If you want a list of Democrats most likely to be targeted by this GOP astroturf campaign, there you go.

Smooth move guys. I'd take comfort in the fact that you've completely screwed yourselves with this brainless maneuver if you hadn't raised the danger of screwing us all, too.

If you live in one of those 70 districts, get to town hall or listening session. Take a camera -- preferably video. These nuts are the same ones from the tea parties, so we can expect racism, ignorance, and stupidity. They simply can't avoid making complete fools of themselves, because they're almost entirely complete fools. The tea parties didn't make any real difference -- in fact, it probably hurt the GOP by encouraging the racists and the birthers and other Glenn Beck types. Part of that failure can attributed to the examples of teabagger idiocy that were posted all over the net.

Let them shriek, let them claw their eyes out, let them compare Obama to Hitler and say their local congress member is like Mao. Catch the birthers as they rant about Kenya and Indonesia. Catch the racists as they hold up signs calling the president "boy." Let them be exactly as crazy and idiotic as they want to be.

Give them enough rope...

-Wisco


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Panetta in Defense of Crime

There aren't many issues on which the Obama administration has been as disappointing as on the issue of the crimes of the previous administration. The ruling fiction coming from the White House is that it's time to move on, as if the law only applies to things that are happening right now, as if you can only arrest and charge a criminal if you catch them in the act. If they manage to commit a crime and not be arrested on the spot, then that means they've gotten away with it.

It's gotten so bad that when Attorney General Eric Holder announced last month that he might appoint a special prosecutor to investigate torture, it was big, big news. "Nation's Top Cop May Investigate Crime" really shouldn't be a big headline. At least, not in a country that applies the law evenly, regardless of how powerful the criminal is or was. Torture is one of the most heinous crimes that a state can commit and it's astounding that there's any controversy about prosecuting it. If you need evidence of just how badly this sort of crime can harm the nation committing it, there you go -- respect for law among the country's most powerful has been shattered by the action. And respect for law among the country's most powerful must be restored.

Part of the problem is that Washington insiders live in a separate reality, where what is right is determined by what is good politics and where what is possible is determined by the number of insiders an action would hurt. Entrenched thinking pervades agencies like the FBI and the CIA and the battlecry of "change" doesn't reach into those trenches. On the issue of torture, the argument is made that it would harm people's abilities to do their jobs. If you start prosecuting for torture, interrogators would be overly careful, for fear of prosecution. If this is true, you wonder how intelligence gathering operated before the Bush administration showed up and torture was clearly illegal. It could only have been by tremendous luck that the United States was never destroyed by her enemies, because interrogators must've been terrified into paralysis about doing their jobs.





None of which excuses the Obama administration. The FBI and CIA serve the government, not vice versa. And if the agencies are resistant to change and fearful of accountability, it's the duty of the White House to ask them one very important question; "So what?" When someone tells the administration, "That's not how we do things around here," the correct response should be "It is now."

Pushing back against the idea of accountability is Leon Panetta, Obama's appointment to CIA Director. In a Sunday op-ed in the Washington Post, Panatta makes the case for doing nothing about what is inarguably a crime.

Last month, at a meeting overseas of intelligence service chiefs, one of my counterparts from a major Western ally pulled me aside. Why, he asked, is Washington so consumed with what the CIA did in the past, when the most pressing national security concerns are in the present? It was a very good question. In fact, I've become increasingly concerned that the focus on the past, especially in Congress, threatens to distract the CIA from its crucial core missions: intelligence collection, analysis and covert action.

In our democracy, effective congressional oversight of intelligence is important, but it depends as much on consensus as it does on secrecy. We need broad agreement between the executive and legislative branches on what our intelligence organizations do and why. For much of our history, we have had that. Over the past eight years, on specific issues -- including the detention and interrogation of terrorists -- the consensus deteriorated. That contributed to an atmosphere of declining trust, growing frustration and more frequent leaks of properly classified information.

Apparently, our "major Western ally" is incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. All that torture stuff is in the past, what's the deal with worrying about it now? Never mind that every single person who's ever been convicted of any crime has been convicted of a crime they committed in the past. "Let's let bygones be bygones" hasn't been a successful defense in a single one of those cases.

And we need consensus between the CIA and congress? Yeah, that'd be great. But we're not talking about co-equal branches of government here. The CIA serves the nation, which means they answer to congress. Get a contitutional amendment making the CIA a fourth branch of government and you've got a point, Leon. Otherwise, that's not a very good argument. If a consensus is essential, it's your job to get it. You bring the CIA in line with the rest of the government, because doing it the other way is as insane as it is unconstitutional. Oversight means oversight, not bending over backwards to let agents do whatever the hell they want to do. The word "overseer" does not imply a subservient position.

Panetta goes on to argue that the CIA has made changes and that should be the end of the story. After briefing congress on a program that the agency kept secret from the legislative branch, congress apparently went nuts and decided that their constitutional duties actually meant something. How crazy is that?

Unfortunately, rather than providing an opportunity to start a new chapter in CIA-congressional relations, the meeting sparked a fresh round of recriminations about the past. I recognize that there will always be tension in oversight relationships, but there are also shared responsibilities. Those include protecting the classified information that shapes our conversations. Together, the CIA and Congress must find a balance between appropriate oversight and a recognition that the security of the United States depends on a CIA that is totally focused on the job of defending America.

There it is again, a "new chapter" of letting bygones be bygones. Besides, Panetta briefed congress and then some members blabbed about it -- without giving away any state secrets. The CIA can't trust congress and that's bad.

Or it would be if the Constitution didn't say otherwise. Once again, Panetta seems to argue that the CIA is congress's constitutional equal and that co-operation between the agency and the people under the Capitol dome is the result of negotiation and understanding -- like a treaty between two nations.

But Panetta's argument still hasn't plumbed the depths of deliberate stupidity. Perhaps realizing that he isn't making any damned sense at all so far, he runs up the favorite flag of the previous administration.

The time has come for both Democrats and Republicans to take a deep breath and recognize the reality of what happened after Sept. 11, 2001. The question is not the sincerity or the patriotism of those who were dealing with the aftermath of Sept. 11. The country was frightened, and political leaders were trying to respond as best they could. Judgments were made. Some of them were wrong. But that should not taint those public servants who did their duty pursuant to the legal guidance provided. The last election made clear that the public wanted to move in a new direction.

Shut up, Leon. You're right about one thing, the question isn't "the sincerity or the patriotism of those who were dealing with the aftermath of Sept. 11." No one gives a damn. The question is the legality of their actions. You might have heard a cliché about the pavement of the road to hell -- no one should give a damn that their intentions were good. And saying that the "country was frightened, and political leaders were trying to respond as best they could" is irrelevant. This is basically saying that the Bush administration panicked at the exact moment they should've kept their heads. I couldn't care less how terrified the perpetually frightened Dick Cheney was. The motive is evidence, not a defense. If 9/11 sent the Bush administration over the edge, then that's just one more strike against them.

If Panetta wants to restore confidence in the CIA, then he can not only work to change the agency -- which, in his defense, he seems to be doing -- but he can also prove it. A first step in doing that would be to prove that the agency understands its relationship to congress. Right now, he's flunking that test badly.

-Wisco


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