The Discerning Texan

I think my outrage meter just broke. I’m not sure it can be fixed. Since when do people on the left think this is a good thing?

“intelligence career seniors were lined up to go to jail if necessary” if the document’s gist were not given to the public. Translation? Someone in that group would have gone to the media “on the record” to disclose its contents.

So once they had produced the 2007 NIE that a) contradicted the 2005 NIE and b) would probably take the wind out of any effort to keep up the pressure on Iran (which, even according to the 2007 NIE did have a clandestine nuclear weapons program, albeit one that might be on hold), the unelected intelligence officers who produced it were prepared to force it into the public if the president himself didn’t release it. They held a sword to the elected president: Release this sensitive and probably problematic and possibly inaccurate document, or we’ll release it even though doing so is illegal.

To answer my own question posed at the top of this post, the only time anyone on the left would think that this is a good thing is when it’s done to a Republican president. Or at least, this Republican president.

Say what you want about President Bush, and everyone left and right is never short of words to describe him, he is the elected president. He does set national policy, at least according to the Constitution. The intelligence community is supposed to answer to him, not the other way around.

If that quote is true, though, the elected president isn’t in charge of the IC at all. It’s in charge of him.

This is a good thing? I don’t see how. It looks like a brazen threat to the republic, regardless of which political party you happen to support. But I guess that’s just me.