Alex Constantine - December 25, 2008
Some observations after being involved in a Fox News report
By Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/23/brennan/
Dec. 23, 2008
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the extreme disconnect between reality and reporting in the John Brennan controversy. Specifically, the case against John Brennan as CIA Director -- from the beginning -- was based almost exclusively on comments he made on television, after he left the CIA, in which he supported rendition and what he called "enhanced interrogation tactics." ...
The anti-Brennan case was not based on any claims that he helped implement those programs at the CIA. It was not based on the theory that anyone in a top level position at the CIA in this decade should, for that reason alone, be deemed "tainted." It was, instead, based on the post-CIA, pro-rendition and pro-"enhanced interrogation tactic" comments he made -- period. It is obviously p0ssible to dispute the opinion that those comments from Brennan should disqualify him from consideration for CIA Director, but it is not reasonably possible to dispute that (a) Brennan made these statements in support of rendition and "enhanced interrogation tactics" and (b) the campaign against Brennan was based almost entirely on those publicly expressed viewpoints of his.
Nonetheless, no matter how many times that is pointed out and documented, journalists and Brennan allies continue to recite the mantra -- like mindless, programmed zombies wholly unaffected by external stimuli -- that the case against Brennan was grounded in his critics' unfair theory that merely being at the CIA makes someone "tainted," or, more inaccurately still, based on the critics' false accusation that Brennan himself helped to implement the CIA's torture program. Those claims are pure fantasies; they had nothing to do with anything. Yet like so many total myths that take root in our political discourse, it's impossible to dislodge this storyline, no matter how much linguistic clarity and factual documentation are marshaled against it. ...
