ThinkProgress Year In Review: The 10 Most Popular Posts Of 2007
Right Wing Launches Baseless Smear Campaign Against 12 Year Old Recipient Of SCHIP [Link]
Fox News Anchor Calls Ted Kennedy A ‘Hostile Enemy Right Here On The Home Front’ [Link]
Obama Smeared As Former ‘Madrassa’ Student, Possible Covert Muslim Extremist [Link]
Gonzales Contradicts Prior Statements, Confirms Existence Of Other Spying Programs [Link]
The rest at the link.
9/11 Commission chair: ‘No question’ CIA knew we wanted tapes
There is “no question” the CIA was aware that its now-destroyed videotapes depicting severe interrogations were among evidence being sought by 9/11 Commission investigators, says the commission’s chairman Thomas Kean.
Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, told CNN’s John Roberts that the 9/11 Commission had actively sought all of the spy agency’s information about detainees with suspected links to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
“I’m not a lawyer and I’m not sure if they broke the law or not but what they did do, I think, is try to impede our investigation,” said Kean. “Because we asked for…anything to do with those detainees, because they were the ones who knew most about the plot of 9/11 and that was our mandate.”
He sharply dismissed the agency’s continued insistence that the tapes were not specifically requested by the commission.
“They can parse their words all they want,” he continued. “We asked for every single thing that they had, and then my vice chairman, Lee Hamilton, looked the director of the CIA in the face and said, ‘look, even if we haven’t asked for something, if it’s pertinent to our investigation, make it available to us.’ And our staff asked again and again of their staff and the tapes were not given to us. So there was no question.”
You can’t help but note the irony of one Republican complaining about the parsing of language. Hamilton asked for anything related to 9-11 and we’re now to believe that persons held by the CIA that they thought necessary to torture were not pertinent to said investigation.
The CIA Inspector General, a watchdog of the CIA was investigated by the CIA and now the CIA’s watchdog will change the way it watches the CIA with a “dozen” procedural changes.
The probe was led by Robert L. Deitz, an attorney and longtime associate of Hayden who was brought to the agency to serve as a senior advisor to the director.
Deitz was appointed by General Michael Hayden who was appointed by Bush and recently probably lied about the time period that taped interrogations ended. Maybe someone does need to watch the watchdogs, but is Hayden and his friend the people to trust with that responsibility.
A good conscience is a continual Christmas.~ Benjamin Franklin
The Long Goodbye 
