Sullivan: "No Way. No How. No Brennan."

by Damozel | Well, well.  Earlier I rolled my eyes at the sweet naivete of fellow progressives who still think---or who ever thought---that Obama was going to run White House policy to a progressive's liking.  John Brennan was the example I picked, since he was vocal enough during the primaries about supporting telecom immunity to get my attention.

Sullivan, a conservative, doesn't like him either.  In fact, he absolutely lets fly.

Marc reports the Republican, former chief-of-staff for George Tenet (who authorized war crimes as CIA head), admirer of Dick Cheney, CEO of the company one of whose contract employees improperly accessed Obama's and McCain's passports, and defender of renditions and "enhanced interrogations" is still Obama's front-runner pick to head the CIA. No, I'm not making this up. Brennan was high up in the agency during the run-up to the Iraq war and has since conceded this about the intelligence he was in part responsible for:

Looking back on it now, as we put pieces together, it probably is apparent to some, including Paul, that it was much more politicized than in fact we realized.

So Brennan was complicit and naive in the run-up to the Iraq war. And Obama wants to reward him? Brennan is also a believer in Cheney's term "the dark side," wishing merely to have some limits within it. He clearly has a mindset that has far more in common with the war crimes of his former boss than with the clear, and indisputable beliefs of the Obama movement....

It's fine not to uproot the entire agency and to have some continuity. But for Obama to appoint a Bush-Cheney apologist to the CIA? How on earth did this idea get this far?  (The Daily Dish)
 

He is trenchant about Brennan's "ambivalence" (Sullivan's word) concerning torture. 

Why is such a man even considered for the post under Obama? This man cannot end the taint of Bush-Cheney. He was Bush-Cheney. In fact, if Obama picks him, it will be a vindication of the kind of ambivalence and institutional moral cowardice that made America a torturing nation.

In fact, I'd like to see much more evidence of whether Brennan himself is implicated in the war crimes and unlawfulness of the past eight years. If nominated, the Senate should find out. Whatever his qualities, Brennan is not change...

Ambivalence on this matter is unacceptable. We haven't fought for decency and reform and a return to American values for so long to be turned back now. We didn't work our butts off to elect Obama only to get Bush another four years at CIA. If Brennan emerges as the pick, those of us against the continuation of war crimes and the prosecution of war criminals will have to oppose him strenuously in the nomination process. We will, in fact, have to go to war with Obama before he even takes office.

And if Obama doubts our seriousness, I have three words for him. Yes we can.(The Daily Dish)

I agree with everything he said except the part about "going to war with Obama."  Bit late in the date for that, I'd say, particularly considering the McCain-Palin alternative.

But as a former Hillary supporter, all I can do is shake my head incredulously that he's only now worrying about the people Obama picks to advise him. Sullivan was one of the main Obama cheerleaders, leading many a charge against Hillary Clinton, whom he hates.  (Ironically, it is Hillary whom he is now channeling with "No way.  No how.  No Brennan.")

I'm not saying Hillary would have been different.  Maybe, maybe not.  But I wish these pundits who led the way in trumpeting Obama had taken an unbiased look at him back when it mattered.   He has never been an ideologue, and has always been a political pragmatist.  He'll always balance heavy moral judgments against what works and split the difference.

"I thought you were different!" is acceptable as a young person's cri de coeur against a romantic disappointment, but not for a middle-aged pundit with a broad platform for influencing public opinion. 

I consider Sullivan, who has a large and diverse centrist platform, to have been instrumental in selling Obama to the moderates.  In fact, I thought he was grossly unfair to Hillary, who---whatever her personal faults and however wrong she might have been about the Iraq war---has at least been publicly consistent in opposing telecom immunity, the pouring of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of war profiteers, and other such matters. 

I too remember Brennan during the primaries.  I remember his publicly opposing Obama (who later came round to his way of thinking) on telecom immunity.  I remember the passport kerfuffle.  Sullivan now says:

It may be that Brennan will stop torture under any euphemism. But the trouble with this area of policy is that it is necessarily secret and so trusting the people running the CIA is essential. I don't trust Brennan.(The Daily Dish)

Perhaps Sullivan and others should fall back now on their blind trust in Obama as something new and different in politics, who shared their vision of...well, whatever their vision was.   They might comfort themselves now with the thought that Obama, who promised to run things differently, is otherwise keeping his promise to look for unity, middle ground, bi-partisan compromise. 

Surely if they were willing to put their trust in Obama, then, they should be willing to trust him., if not his operatives?

By all means, let Sullivan oppose the Brennan choice---so do I.  But if he reacts as if this is new information or that this exact possibility wasn't on the cards from early on in this election cycle, it's hard not to infer that he was being willfully inattentive.

Obama is possibly one of the most intelligent and adroit politicians ever elected to the presidency.  But he is not driven by idealism but by exactly the sort of cold-eyed pragmatism conservatives pretended to find in Bush and to value.  Get used to seeing him pick people based on his assessment of their judgment and of their utility in implementing his goals rather than on an assessment of their morals, ethics, or ideals.   Maybe he'll choose Brennan; maybe he won't.  But if he doesn't it won't be because he objects to Brennan's record, or wasn't aware of it all along,  but because he determines that someone else will be more useful to him than Brennan in that position. 

The hope and change he offered was the hope of finding solutions that would be acceptable to both sides of the middle of the political continuum.  I don't expect to agree with him.  And I might not be a pundit of Sullivan's breadth of experience and knowledge, but at least I went into this deal with my eyes open. 

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Comments

[streiff]

agree with a lot of what you said, except, of course, the silliness about Andrew Sullivan being a conservative.

[hunter]

The people who voted for an empty suit are now complaining that the actual substance appearing in the suit is not what they confabulated it should be.
How touching.
And Sullivan is a conservative the way GW Bush is a liberal.

[Joe]

"cold-eyed pragmatism"

as with the "empty suit" line in comments, I don't think this is really fair. It factors into his decision-making, but I don't think the idealism his message put out there was total b.s. or anything.

I will repeat myself from earlier; I am not some naive dreamer. He will do things I don't like, including dissing same sex marriage (pick your field). But, there are lines to be drawn. We can draw them.

Just throwing up our hands no matter what he does and saying "oh well, in for a inch, in for a light year" is not necessary. And, Hunter's comment implies there is just a tad bit sour grapes in the cynicism too.

[Damozel]

I missed the idealism. I thought people weren't listening to how he was describing his hoped-for changes.

I think he's doing exactly what he said.