Morning Bell: The Left’s War On The CIA

Conn Carroll / August 25, 2009

In June of 2008, while campaigning for the election of President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder promised the leftist American Constitutional Society: “We owe the American people a reckoning.” Yesterday, Holder escalated his “reckoning” campaign by appointing a prosecutor to re-investigate nearly a dozen CIA interrogators and contractors alleged to have abused detainees in 2002 and 2003. This is nothing more than an all out war on the CIA by the left at a time when the President desperately needs to shore up trust with his base in the face of his declining poll numbers.

Already the White House is at pains to create the perception of distance between Holder’s announcement and President Obama’s wishes. Deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters from Martha’s Vineyard yesterday: “ultimately, the decisions on who is investigated and who is prosecuted are up to the attorney general. . . . The president thinks that Eric Holder, who he appointed as a very independent attorney general, should make those decisions.” But make no mistake. Holder works for Obama. Holder’s priorities are by definition Obama’s priorities. And the facts make it clear that this “new” investigation is nothing more than a political witch hunt: (more…)