More Cheney News, Ho Hum

I see they're reporting (NY Times) that Dick Cheney ordered the CIA not to disclose to Congress their various activities. Leon Panetta's telling it that way.

For anyone else, this could potentially be a problem. For Cheney, who seems to be quite above the law, it's just another day.

Is there anything this guy could do that would get him in trouble?

If he robbed a bank and they were chasing him down the road, I can hear it now. They're radioing ahead, "It's Cheney." "OK, let him go. Back to the station, men."

Leon Panetta

Now he tells us:

CIA Director Leon Panetta told lawmakers in a recent briefing that the intelligence agency he heads misled Congress on "significant actions" for a "number of years," a group of Democrats revealed on Wednesday.

We will be expecting the apologies to Nancy Pelosi to commence right about now... [crickets].

Why anyone would expect a covert agency to always tell the truth, I don't know. Lies, tricks, and deception are their business. But it would be nice, let's say preferable, if they at least told the truth to the people in charge of their business.

I couldn't understand how Panetta could come in there and be so certain that they hadn't misled Congress over the years. How would he know? Do they have a big basket that says "Things We Misled Congress On" and it was empty?

He just came into office this year. Is that the way it works at most businesses, that a guy comes into the office and immediately knows everything that happened for the last 10 years?

The CIA Lied

I'm sure of it. Now we have yet another Democrat, which is the fourth I believe, saying the CIA kept sloppy records of a particular meeting, because they had listed a guy in attendance who was excluded from the actual meeting.

Why is it such a surprise that the CIA might ever lie? Have they been entirely forthcoming in the past about things? I think Leon Panetta is all wet. (By the way, wasn't he one of our guys? What's his problem all of a sudden?)

I haven't been watching the news -- seriously, so I miss this stuff -- but I've been reading that they're taking Nancy Pelosi to task over what she said about not being briefed early on about torture. These guys don't care about the truth. All they care about is scoring partisan points.

She probably is telling the truth. But they don't care.

Pelosi

I believe Nancy Pelosi, that the CIA lied to her and the Congress about waterboarding. Was there anything about the Bush administration that was the least bit truthful? I mean, c'mon!

But it's kind of weird that Leon Panetta, checking the official records, says they didn't lie. The records, he says, show that they briefed Congress about the waterboarding, blah blah blah.

This is the CIA we're talking about here. None of those guys would have any ability whatsoever to falsify records from seven or eight years ago, would they? They're spies, for crying out loud! They have all kinds of abilities, one would hope. If they're able to do infiltration, sabotage, go undercover among the world's worst terrorists, and all that ... are we really to think they're such Sunday School children that they wouldn't be able to do some cosmetic surgery on records from seven or eight years ago?

Give us a break.

I don't know the full story, of course. But, again, nothing about Bush's government was truthful. They were liars first, last, and always. Maybe they can pull the wool over Panetta's eyes so easily, but I tend to look at their denials somewhat askance.