by Deb Cupples | John Brennan was the intelligence adviser to Barrack Obama during the campaign. What upset many legal scholars and progressives (and even many libertarians) is that Mr. Brennan fully supported President Bush's anti-accountability policy aimed at giving retroactive immunity to Telecom companies that had broken the law when helping the Bush Administration illegally spy on Americans.
For weeks now, media folks and bloggers had speculated that Mr. Brennan would join the Obama Adminsitration as CIA Director or Director of National Intelligence (or in some other intelligence-related position).
Those speculations were dashed today, when Mr. Brennan wrote a letter to Mr. Obama, in which the latter withdrew his name from consideration for an intelligence-related position in the Obama Administration. (MSNBC)
In part, Mr. Brennan' s letter states wrote:
"My transition responsibilities have led to speculation that I am under consideration for a senior intelligence position in your Administration. Quite unfortunately, this speculation has led to strong criticism in some quarters prompted by my previous service with the Central Intelligence Agency.
"It has been immaterial to the critics that I have been a strong opponent of many of the policies of the Bush Adminsitration such as the preemptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics, to include waterboarding."
That all may be true (though I'm not familiar with Mr. Brennan's history). What I am familiar with is that on one very weighty issue, Mr. Brennan was right behind the Bush Administration: Telecom Amnesty.
That's a hard one to live down -- not quite on the same scale as (but not far behind) armed robbery.
Telecom Amnesty upset many people because 1) it showed that well-connected folks really were above the law; and 2) it reduced to nearly nothing the chances that we taxpayers would ever learn the extent to which the Bush Administration and its aides in Corporate America had violated our nation's laws.
That, I suspect, is the primary reason that many wonks and legal scholars (from both sides of the aisle) simply do not trust Mr. Brennan. And it seems like reason enough.
H/T to Andrew Sullivan for posting about this. Memeorandum has commentary.
Other Buck Naked Politics Posts
* Someone, Please Take the Economy Away from Paulson?
* Did Anti-Bailout Vote Really Cause Dow to Go Down?
* Cutting Executive Pay Would Save Jobs
* Execs Made Millions While Driving Companies into Ditch
* Lehman Execs Redistribute Shareholder Wealth (to Themselves)
.
Comments