Operation Blackbriar

We don't know what this program was. They tell us it wasn't waterboarding or the other torture methods. (You do realize that "harsh interrogation methods" is a euphemism worthy of the Nazis or the Soviets, right?) They tell us it wasn't the massive surveillance that essentially rendered the Fourth Amendment so much empty language.

They also tell us that it was never an "operational" program, even after nearly eight years. Oh, bullshit. To believe that, you'd have to have your head buried so far up your ass that it would be looking out your navel.

Dick Cheney, the true power of Duhbya's maladministration, ordered this program kept secret from Congress, kept immune from the oversight of democracy. He explicitly evaded the rule of law. (Again!) This was - and still is - the canonical impeachable offense. It's also a violation of his oath of office.

There is no way that Darth Cheney would have been interested enough in "planning and some training that took place off and on from 2001 until this year" to suppress disclosure of it. The New York Times is playing along to even print such nonsense.

Note: In all the wingnut foofaraw about Nancy Pelosi accusing Leon Panetta of lying about the CIA's legal obligations to brief Congress is the most obvious bullshit. Panetta did not say the CIA always briefed Congress in compliance with its legal obligations. He said that it was not the CIA's policy to withhold legally required briefings. Is everyone in the media too dense - or too happy to play along with the inside game - to notice this?

(h/t Boston Globe, where I first read the Times report on this)

The Bourne Conundrum

Saw the Bourne Ultimatum the other night. It's gripping, and the fights are as well choreographed as the two previous movies in the trilogy. But, despite fawning reviews, it's not as good as Identity or Supremacy. In fact, it steals quite a lot from them, and it's repetitive on its own, too.

I still enjoyed it. That's the way of action movies.

Ultimatum has a political point of view. The Bushist executive-power black bag bodyguard of lies tell-you-I'd-have-to-kill-you covert types are the bad guys. But it's still a very small part of the movie.

The question the movie, like many before it, posed for me is this: There are clearly men who have the will to power, who inhabit powerful positions and are willing, even eager, to act in the dark. Are transparency, the open society, and a politics based on real, not manufactured, consent even possible? Has my belief in them been head-up-my-ass naive?