@ Rich Gardner
The simple fact is, Brennan had reversed his earlier stated position on the use of enhanced interrogation, rendering most of the complaints moot. Was he being truthful, or pragmatic? I honestly don’t know.
In any event, was he ever in a position to effect a change in policy? He never directly administered or participated in the interrogation/rendition program to my knowledge.
So I guess it comes down to “you’re a bad guy because you didn’t immediately resign”. But why would he do so? Resigning on principle would have achieved what? A ten second feature on nightly news?
He was being paid to keep Americans safe and no laws were being broken. He seems merely to have wanted to do his utmost in the positions he occupied. Which is hardly something worth condemning him for.
@ Cabdriver
Again, I fail to see how you derive from my article that I want to keep anyone from having “an effect on the debate”. These reflexive attempts to accuse me of suppressing dissent totally miss the point. My complaint was about undue, unmerited influence from a source that lacked both restraint and experience.
As for assigning responsibility for his withdrawal, I think the ultimate arbiter has to be Brennan himself, and he was quite open in blaming his online critics. The broad belief that they were responsible was later independently confirmed by an AP source who said:
“…Obama’s advisers had grown increasingly concerned in recent days over Web logs that accused Brennan of condoning harsh interrogation tactics, including waterboarding, which critics call torture.”
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=78&sid=1525895#
Most of the analysis that has come out in the aftermath of his withdrawal confirms that the condemnation was by no means universal. He was really only being hammered by a few online columnists. Yet their influence is such with the Obama administration that his preemptive withdrawal was accepted.
Try to see it from another point of view. Imagine that McCain had won the election and he was so seemingly in thrall to a handful of conservative columnists that he would dump a promising Sec-State or UN Ambassador with almost 30 years of relevant experience – all for fear that she might lead McCain off on a slightly more liberal approach. I suspect that you might take greater umbrage to that.
Why exactly should Brennan “speak up in opposition” when, from his point of view, EI&R were yielding real, tangible results and they were perfectly legal? Your expectations remind me of a lecture I once sat through, in which an earnest bunch of postgrads all swore blind that if they had been Pope Pius XII, they would have gleefully gone to their doom rather than pretend to assuage Hitler and Mussolini for one moment.
I couldn’t help wondering then, is that truly the case? Just how easy is it to hurl away a life’s accomplishments? The stakes for Pius were huge – Hitler already had plans to take him out if required. For Brennan they were considerably less so. No one has died as a result of the CIA’s EI&R programs. But lives have been saved as a direct result of them.
I think for someone in Brennan’s position, it was a little bit tricker a proposition than what you suppose.
