Leon Panetta admits that enhanced interrogation was part of locating bin Laden.

On "Meet the Press" today:



"Yes, some of it came from some of the tactics that were used at that time, interrogation tactics that were used. But the fact is we put together most of that intelligence without having to resort to that."

"Obama to nominate counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan for CIA director."

"Brennan was considered to be a contender for the job four years ago when Obama was first assembling his intelligence and national security team. But he ultimately withdrew his name amid questions on the left over his ties to controversial CIA programs. "

Looking back at my own posts, I see that I believed that Leon Panetta had been chosen to head the C.I.A. "to appease the people who bellyached about Brennan." I was reading this in the NYT (from January 5, 2009):

The choice of Mr. Panetta comes nearly two weeks after Mr. Obama had otherwise wrapped up his major personnel moves. It appears to reflect the difficulty Mr. Obama has encountered in finding a candidate who is capable of taking charge of the agency but is not tied to the interrogation and detention program run by the C.I.A. under President Bush.

Aides have said that Mr. Obama had originally hoped to select a C.I.A. director with extensive field experience, especially in combating terrorist networks. But his first choice for the job, John O. Brennan, had to withdraw his name amid criticism over his alleged role in the formation of the agency’s detention and interrogation program after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Later, in 2010, when Obama appointed Brennan as Director of National Intelligence, there was criticism from the right. Here's The Weekly Standard (on May 20, 2010):

First, in prepared remarks in Washington, Brennan referred to his love for “al-Quds,” which happens to be the Arab revanchist name for the city that the rest of us call “Jerusalem.”...

At a conference in Washington, he said that the Obama administration is exploring ways to strengthen the hand of “moderate elements” within Hezbollah....

Earlier this year Brennan said that the 20% recidivism rate of the Gitmo detainees released up to that point was “not that bad.” See, he explained, the rate for American criminals sometimes approaches 50%. Well, yes, but—terrorists are not criminals.  Terrorists are by definition a special kind of mass murderer....

These are only a few of John Brennan’s greatest hits. His record of insouciance, political correctness, misleading statements and naivety is long and rich.

"Lady Jerks of 2012: A Year in Review."

Today seems to be my day for finding screwy ideas in Slate. This one seems to be a twist on the old feminist bumper sticker "Well-behaved women rarely make history." I can't quite tell whether Amanda Hess is trying to encourage/facilitate female jerkiness or what. Yeah, there's the ancient problem of wanting to be liked, which is really only a problem if you want it too much and want it above other, better goals. It's perfectly idiotic to think that the solution to the excessive desire to be liked is to be unlikeable.

But, whatever... the women Hess recognizes as the "Lady Jerks of 2012" are: the CIA agent who complained that she shouldn't have had to share the Distinguished Intelligence Medal for finding bin Laden; Anne Hathaway, the actress who talked back haughtily when asked about the photographs that paparazzi somehow were able to take of the body part Hess refers to as "her vagina"; Julia Gillard, the prime minister of Australia who called some political opponent a misogynist; Taylor Swift, the pretty young singer who crashed a Kennedy wedding with her Kennedy boyfriend; and Susan Rice, who, as Hess would have it, lost out on getting to be the next Secretary of State because people thought she was “prickly,” “hard-headed,” “temperamentally unfit,” and “always right on the edge of a screech.” Hess writes: "The personality police eventually moved Rice to withdraw her name from the running." That's not what I heard!

The real-life heroine depicted in "Zero Dark Thirty."

WaPo presents a different image:

The operative, who remains undercover... has sparred with CIA colleagues over credit for the bin Laden mission. After being given a prestigious award for her work... “She hit ‘reply all’ ” to an e-mail announcement of the awards, a ... former CIA official said. The thrust of her message, the former official said, was: “You guys tried to obstruct me. You fought me. Only I deserve the award.”

Over the past year, she was denied a promotion that would have raised her civil service rank from GS-13 to GS-14, bringing an additional $16,000 in annual pay.... The move stunned the woman’s former associates, despite her reputation for clashing with colleagues.

“Do you know how many CIA officers are jerks?” the former official said. “If that was a disqualifier, the whole National Clandestine Service would be gone.”

Torture in "Zero Dark Thirty": "It’s enough to make you wretch. It’s arguably the best and most important part of the movie."

Spencer Ackerman — whose wretched spelling may make you retch — struggles with the question that's plaguing movie fans today: Does the much-praised, Oscar-worthy Kathryn Bigelow film approve of torture?

One scene features a bloodied, disoriented and humiliated man strapped to a wall with his pants around his ankles. A second scene depicts the same man having liquid forcibly poured down his throat; later, he’s shoved into a box that could barely hold your stereo...

I'm no longer willing to view movies like this. (And I saw "3 Kings," which had a man getting liquid — crude oil — poured down his throat.) But this is what perhaps counts as serious film art these days. Crappy film entertainment is also full of torture (horror films).

Ackerman defends Bigelow: the film "presents a graphic depiction of what declassified CIA documents indicate the torture program really was" and "does not present torture as a silver bullet that led to bin Laden; it presents torture as the ignorant alternative to that silver bullet."

Bigelow's critics, linked in Ackerman's article, are worried that the film may convince people that torture is effective and worthwhile. This all sounds too rational. What does sitting quietly in a dark room with a crowd of comfortable strangers, watching huge, bright, clear moving pictures of actors pretending to be tortured do to our souls? I know the stock answer is: It's worse to live comfortably and complacently with a head free of any such picture. But the stock answer assumes that our souls are already dead.

Lindsey Graham was on fire on "Meet the Press" today.

About the Benghazi attack and the statements various people made about it:

... I think one of the reasons that Susan Rice told the story she did, if the truth came out a few weeks before the election that our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, had been overrun by an al Qaeda sponsored or affiliated militia, that destroys the narrative we’ve been hearing for months that al Qaeda has been dismantled, bin Laden is dead, we’re safer.... [T]he story she told reinforced a political narrative helpful to the president, but disconnected from reality....

The president said, why pick on her? She didn’t know anything about Benghazi. She was the most politically compliant person they could find.... Would this White House mislead the American people about national security events? I think they might simply because when the bin Laden raid occurred, they leaked every detail about the raid....

There are 10 militia groups all over Benghazi. I blame the president for…making this a death trap. I blame the president for not having assets available to help these people for eight hours. We need a select committee not only to look at intelligence failures...

Also in today's MTP transcript:  the House and Senate intelligence chairs Congressman Mike Rogers and Senator Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein is clear that on Sept. 14th, David Petraeus said the Benghazi attack was terrorism. Why did Susan Rice say otherwise on Sept. 16th? Rogers says:

The intelligence community had it right, and they had it right early.  What happened was it worked its way up through the system of the so-called talking points, which everyone refers to, and then it went up to what’s called a deputy’s committee... that’s populated by appointees from the administration.  That’s where the narrative changed.  And so how that thing got back to Senator Rice, I think, is probably another question.

Feinstein says the White House did not change the talking points (other than to change the word "consulate" to "mission").  Rogers says:

[T]here was no one in the professional intelligence community could tell us who changed what.  So that-- there-- there goes the disconnect.  So the intelligence community said this is-- this was a terrorist act.

The moderator, David Gregory, says he doesn't get it: "Why not just call it what it was?  Who-- why are we protecting?" Feinstein says she doesn't know, and she seems to be really struggling to understand (even though I assume she's trying to protect her party's interests). Gregory asks "was there a cover-up?" And "Do you believe that the president or anybody serving the president deliberately misled the American people about the true nature of this attack for political reasons?" And Feinstein says "no, no." She's the Democrat. The Republican, Rogers, says:

Well, this is what I know.  I know the narrative was wrong and the intelligence was right.  Now, getting between there and there, I think you have to be careful about making those accusations.... But there were some policy decisions made based on the narrative that was not consistent with the intelligence that we had.

"Now, I don't know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex had actually, um, had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner..."

"... and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back. So that's still being vetted."

Paula Broadwell burbled, a little too pleased with her access to power.

A few days later, Petraeus testified in a closed session to Congress that the attack was due in large part to an anti-Islam video and a spontaneous uprising....

"FBI agents investigating CIA Director David Petraeus's affair were shocked when told by bureau officials..."

"... that despite the national security implications, no action would be taken on their findings until after the presidential election: Only then would President Obama ask for Petraeus’ resignation."

“The decision was made to delay the resignation apparently to avoid potential embarrassment to the president before the election,” an FBI source told me. “To leave him in such a sensitive position where he was vulnerable to potential blackmail for months compromised our security and is inexcusable.”

Petraeus resigns over an affair.

"After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours."

Imagine if this set an example for everyone, and every adulterer resigned from his/her job. Civilization would collapse, no? It would be worse than "going Galt" if everyone goes Petraeus.

It calls to mind the old "General betray us" ad, but he didn't betray us.

ADDED: Is the resignation really about the affair... or is it connected to Benghazi?

"Over the weekend, the newest, and by far the most disturbing, revelations surrounding the Benghazi attack were revealed."

An item at FrontPageMag.com:

Several sources have pointed to the possibility that a major CIA gun-running operation aimed at arming anti-Assad Al-Qaeda-affiliated forces was in danger of being exposed. If true, the information casts an even more devastating pall over the Benghazi terrorist attack and the administration’s botched handling of the region.

The decision to stand down as the Benghazi terrorist attack was underway was met with extreme opposition from the inside. The Washington Times's James Robbins, citing a source inside the military, reveals that General Carter Ham, commander of U.S. Africa Command, who got the same emails requesting help received by the White House, put a rapid response team together and notified the Pentagon it was ready to go. He was ordered to stay put. “His response was to screw it, he was going to help anyhow,” writes Robbins. “Within 30 seconds to a minute after making the move to respond, his second in command apprehended General Ham and told him that he was now relieved of his command.”

If true, Ham has apparently decided he wants no part of the responsibility for the decision not to help those in harm’s way. He is not alone. As the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol revealed late Friday, a spokesperson, “presumably at the direction of CIA director David Petraeus,” released the following statement: "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate.”