A reader writes:
While I agree with you that Brennan would be an awful choice at CIA, for both substantive and symbolic ("branding") reasons, I do see one significant ray of light appearing from this "Dark Side" guy: He wants to have a real debate on these issues:
"It’s a tough ethical question, and it’s a question that really needs to be aired more publicly. The issue of the reported domestic spying — these are very healthy debates that need to take place. They can’t be stifled, because I think that we as a country and a society have to determine what is it we want to do, whether it be eavesdropping, whether it be taking actions against individuals who are either known or suspected to be terrorists. What length do we want to go to? What measures do we want to use? What tactics do we want to use? "
He wants the American people to be forced to make explicit moral choices, instead of acquiescing implicitly to the soft dictatorship of a secretive and dishonest "unitary executive". This is closer to Democracy, at least. Where there is openness and truth, there is hope.
Agreed. But it disturbs me that this man, while urging debate, never tells us which side of the debate he’d be on. I fear he’d be on Tenet’s side. As he has been.
The Dish 