GG: So why pass on the false anonymous attack at the start that purports to define the case against Brennan in such a misleading way?

Meyer has a stake in excusing/defending what the Obama Administration is doing.

GG: Precisely because Obama has retained so many people involved with or otherwise linked to Bush abuses, he is surrounded by people actively working to block any investigation into or accountability for those crimes.

I think the people who are defending/protecting/hiding government actions see themselves as being in an existential battle:

John W. Dean makes escuses for Obama:

The Politics of Excusing Torture In The Name of National Security, 5/15/09

His pullback [on releasing photos] is not occurring because he fears that Republicans will attack him (he knows they will); rather it is occurring because he needs the national security community behind him, and they fear they will be further embarrassed and humiliated if more information is revealed. […] Obama was, in fact, speaking for the national security bureaucracy in announcing his change of mind. I knew it would happen at some point. Although his first instinct had been to release the pictures, as he had released the new Justice Department torture memos, it was clear he had been turned around, and I was certain it was the work of the national security bureaucracy. […] In fact, you can be certain "the commanders" do not truly know that the photos will harm America's image, but they do know how to protect the national security bureaucracy, after having risen to its top ranks. This is exactly what is going on here, and the explanation was pure bureaucratic excuse-making. […] It is not likely that Barack Obama had widespread political support in the national security community, which would have had a natural affinity for one of their own like John McCain. But Obama needs to win their hearts and minds. He cannot effectively lead and protect the country without their support, and since so many are recovering from battered-by-the-White-House syndrome stemming from the Bush/Cheney years, he is dealing with their very bad mood. Rather than risk alienation, Obama has given in to them, at the expense of his natural constituency, the political progressives who find it appalling that the Bush/Cheney torture is not being fully exposed (and prosecuted) to prevent it from happening again -- and sooner, rather than later. http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20090515.html

And he still believes we “voted the Authoritarians out of power":

Expert Advice On Dealing With A Prior Administration's Use of Torture, 6/12/09

"[...] it has become clear that President Obama's announced desire to look forward, not backward [means that] the Obama Administration is not going to prosecute anyone [for torturing detainees] […] By the same token, no one should be surprised that torture occurred when American conservatives ruled in an authoritarian manner. Nor, given the fact that Obama campaigned by opposing such authoritarian actions, it should not be surprising that many of his supporters, who voted the authoritarians out of power in Washington, now want him to prosecute and punish those involved" http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20090612.html

Did we?

Today in the Washington Post, Howard Pincus writes: “CIA Fired Firms Aiding Questioning, One Helped to Introduce Waterboarding”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061402819_pf.html

which is nothing more than a summary of what Mayer says in The New Yorker.

But he slides this in:

“[…] The firings took place in April, around the same time the Senate Armed Services Committee reported on the role played by James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen in developing "countermeasures to defeat" the resistance of captured enemy detainees from whom intelligence was being sought. […]”

This information came out in the Senate Armed Services Committee Preliminary Report on December 11, 2008.

http://media.mcclatchydc.com/smedia/2008/12/11/14/EXEC-SUMMARY-CONCLUSIONs.source.prod_affiliate.91.pdf

Does Pincus really not know this?

Why would they need to torture anyone? Was it because the CIA and its contractors were commanded to come up with intel? And with certain kinds of intel, like, ohhh, maybe linking Saddam to al qaeda, or, ohhh, maybe having torture victims confess to "masterminding" 9/11.–Retzillian

Early October 2002 - two GTMO behavioral scientists who had attended the JPRA-led training at Fort Bragg drafted a memo proposing new interrogation techniques for use at GTMO. According to one of those two behavioral scientists, there was “increasing pressure to get ‘tougher’ with detainee interrogations.” He added that if the interrogation policy memo did not contain coercive techniques, then it “wasn’t going to go very far.” (DD)

March 27, 2007 - “The [Combatant status-review] tribunal president, a colonel whose name is redacted, asked [Abu Zubaydah]: “So I understand that during this treatment, you said things to make them stop and then those statements were actually untrue, is that correct?” Abu Zubaydah replied: “Yes.”” [17] Jane Mayer talks about Zubaydah’s treatment at [55] Excerpts of ICRC interviews with Zubaydah can be found at [132] The ICRC Report is at [135] In May 2002 he had been saying that Iraq and al-Qaeda had an operational relationship. [See May 2002]

http://www.webdsi.com/jebbie/tline.html

May 2002 - The CIA takes over the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah. [16] [See March 28, 2002] “Abu Zubaydah was saying Iraq and al-Qaeda had an operational relationship. It was everything the administration hoped it would be.”” – Pentagon analyst [17] At his Combatant Status Review Tribunal on March 27, 2007, Zubaydah admits to having lied in order to stop the interrogations. [17] According to an American pilot who was imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese in the early 1950’s: “I was grilled day and night, over and over, week in and week out, and in the end, to get Chong and his gang off my back, I confessed to both charges. The charges, of course, were ridiculous.” [142]