Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The Cheney 'Scandal'   [Jonah Goldberg]

Okay, so I’ve had internet problems and staying abreast of the news has been a problem. So, I’m willing to concede that maybe I’m missing something. But, from what I can tell this Cheney scandal story (much hyped in our little New York Times digest thingamajig), is the mother of all nothingburgers.

It’s hard for me not to see it as a ploy by Democrats to distract from the fact that the stimulus bill is a dud, health care is going badly, and cap-and-trade looks like a disaster. The base always enjoys beating up on Cheney, and the press likes that stuff, too.

But, again, let me make sure I'm not missing something. Cheney ordered the CIA to look into sending out squads to kill al-Qaeda leaders after 9/11. Call me crazy, but that’s what I assumed they’d been doing all along. I’m far more scandalized that such plans haven’t been up and running for eight years than I am by the fact that Congress wasn’t briefed on a plan that had never been put into action. (I can only hope the plans were tabled because it was determined that cruise missiles and UAVs worked better than CIA assassins). Oh, but wait, Congress was in the loop.

From CNN:

Neither of the former officials who spoke to CNN would discuss the details of the program in question, but both said the CIA was developing a certain post-9/11 counterterrorism capacity.

As one official put it, "It should come as no surprise that we would go after the bad guys, the terrorists."

Both sources said the program that Panetta discussed fell under a presidential finding that broadly authorized covert counterterrorism activities. They said Congress had been briefed on that finding in the fall of 2001, and there was no requirement to brief lawmakers on a program that had not been implemented.

"When it goes operational, then you brief them," one of the former officials said.

The sources said the program was canceled several years ago — but for reasons unknown to them, it was put back on the table though still not implemented. Panetta terminated the program when he found out about it last month.

So what exactly is the fuss about? Cheney, with the backing of Congress, looked into killing people — who were very much in need of being killed — but the program was never operationalized and Congress is P.O.’d that they weren’t briefed further on a program that wasn’t operational?

Please don’t look at the socialized medicine in the corner; we’re hunting Cheneys.

07/14 07:35 AMShare