Rule Of Law Is For Suckers

CIA Director Leon Panetta takes to the Washinton Post to write an op-ed in pursuit of the Peggy Noonan view of Congressional oversight, when they see something illegal "just need to keep on walking". It would be funny if it wasn't so nauseating. We didn't vote in a new administration just to have them cover up the crimes of the previous adminstration. The political price they pay for not investigating may end up being a lot bigger than the price they would pay for holding people accountable. President Obama and the rest of the people around him seem to be missing the fact that in their quest to grab some of the middle they may lose all of the base. It is what it is.

Deep Thought: Col. Nathan Jessup Edition

As I think back on the movie "A Few Good Men" there was a moment when Tom Cruise's character asked a logic question that went to the heart of his defense of the two marines and against the cover story pushed by Colonel Nathan Jessup. After their platoon was told not to touch Private Santiago supposedly there was another meeting where the two defendents were told specifically not to give him a code red. Tom Cruise established the importance of Marines following orders first and then asked the question that defied the logic of the second meeting. If the soldiers had already been told not to touch Santiago and Marines follow orders "or people die", why then would there ever even need to be a second meeting advising them against beating Santiago's ass?

I have similar thoughts about the current debate amongst Villagers over whether or not the CIA should have briefed Congress on some secret program that they were kept in the dark about for over 8 years. Now first of all let me say yet again that I think this story is much ado about nothing, not because it isn't important, but because there is a lot of misinformation being tossed around. And I think its all just to take attention away from the recent IG report that detailed the humongous (and illegal) warrantless wiretapping program that was operating during the Bush administration.

However even if this is really a big story, one thing should be readily apparent. And that is that OBVIOUSLY the CIA broke the law in not informing Congress. I don't care that anonymous Republicans continue to try to make it seem like the program never got started or that it was shut down a long time ago. What it boils down to is this, it has been well established that Dick Cheney specifically told the CIA NOT to brief Congress. There would be no reason on earth for him to do that unless he himself believed that they SHOULD be briefing Congress on the program. Why would the guy tell them not to brief Congress if there wasn't at least somebody pushing to brief them and or if the facts of the program wasn't making a compelling case for the need to brief them?

Now could you mainstream media types please stop insulting our intelligence and accept it as a given that the CIA broke the law, even though obviously it was at the direction of Dick Cheney?

Thanks in advance.