Congress Anachronistes: CIA Assassination Plots

A big CIA flap is abrewing again, and it has all the earmarks of a classic Democrat talking point. It involves a secret CIA program, assassination of foreign leaders, willful failure to disclose to Congress which might arise to criminal violations of the law. And to top it off, there are indication that it was all orchestrated, planned, produced, created and/or directed by none other than Darth Vader himself, Dick Cheney.

The italics portions are the sum and substance of a typical Democrat talking point on these matters. The rest is mere fill-in, taken from whatever handy square "facts" the Left can wedge into the round holes of a pre-packaged narrative. Please note also that this particular narrative dates from 1975 when a Democratic Congress banned assassination by the CIA, which means that by this point its getting rather worn around the edges from all the square pegs jammed in over the years by the Democrats.

Here are just a few of the Democratic Party leaders running with this talking point football:

"Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, hinted that the Bush administration may have broken the law by not telling Congress ... Withholding such information from Congress, she said, 'is a big problem, because the law is very clear' ... Ms. Feinstein said Mr. Panetta told the lawmakers that Mr. Cheney had ordered that the information be withheld from Congress ... The Senate's second-ranking official, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, and Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, echoed those concerns and called for an investigation ..."

So, what are the real facts about this matter? There is actually only one fact that explains all of this. After 9/11 the U.S. was at war with a radical muslim group known as Al Qaeda. Pursuant thereto Congress authorized and the President issued orders to everyone under his command to seek out and kill every Al Qaeda soldier and leader they could find. These orders were directed to all military personnel, of course, but also, we now learn, the CIA. Are you shocked at this revelation? Or would you be more shocked if the President had told the CIA to lay off killing Al Qaeda operatives?

The Democratic Party leaders apparently are just now finding out about this war against Al Qaeda, and so they are shocked that they had no briefing from the CIA about its role. That, I guess, is the price they pay for living in talking points rather than the real world, especially when those talking points are some 30 years old. The rest of us, who actually keep up with the news on at least a yearly basis, eschew such anachronistic concerns about CIA assassination programs and wonder why after 8 years the CIA's role in the war against Al Qaeda was still only in the planning stages, never operational.

The real bottom line is that this incident makes it clear once again that the Democrats are willing to use whatever fodder they can dredge up to make political points, no matter how absurd, how outrageous, or how harmful to our national security. They are bratty, spoiled children pretending to be leaders of the most powerful country in the world, and an embarrassment to themselves and us.

And don't think the supposed Bush-Haters in foreign capitals don't notice. Their hatred was always of America, not Bush, and finding our great country being led by such light-weights as Reid, Pelosi, Feinstein, Durbin and Leahy, believe me they are licking their chops.

There will be consequences, consequences that will take a long time and hard work to fix, once real adults get back in charge.