they seem to have some mysterious impulse to spill selected parts of their guts at random intervals...they love what they do but also hate it, and want to share a little bit of it with YOU.

Do you just parrott Pelosi or does she allow you to use your own inflections?

I fail to see why she's "owed an apology" when she was caught in a lie. Her spin about the CIA misleading her is irrelevant to the lie about whether or not she knew about waterboarding.

Do you think you'd let Cheney off so easily?

Joan, there's a third possibility: They're cut from the same cloth.

As long as there is a single Republican in the house and another in the Senate the spineless Democrats will not do a damn thing. Indeed I'm not sure that if the entire government was comprised only of Democrats that they would have the balls to launch a serious investigation into Bush and Cheney's lawlessness.

Thanks, everyone!

And in other news, the Giants' Jonathan Sanchez pitched a no hitter. I was all over it on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/joanwalsh

Major diversion from lawbreaking and torture, but we all need a night like this.

Oh, and this is cute:

http://twitpic.com/9sth1

Our puppy, Sadie.

Even I get tired of the serious stuff.

Back to fighting the Cheney regime and trying to lure Obama to dance with the ones that brung him. Thanks for all your help on both. Only nice comments on Sadie welcome; others will be deleted. I don't want her reading the rudeness that can often congeal here.

...back when we were so infuriated with the torture revelations, what makes us any more likely to pressure our government into doing something about this next layer of mess?

If nothing is done, it's we, not "them", who are responsible. I keep saying that OUR job didn't end in November. We just insist on not getting it. Three months from now, we'll be yakking about another layer of criminal activity, having forgotten this.

The "spineless Democrats" mantra is rather infantile.

They are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. To think that because they are elected by "progressives" they are not as corrupted as Republicans is (no to be rude) naive.

Judge by deeds not words. If you do that then President Obama's actions so far are absolutely abominable.

However, if you go by words he should be in line to be beatified in his first term, and canonized in his second.

A yes, there will be a second term because the alternative will purposely be an unpalatable Candidate.

I this were not a tragic, nefarious game, the Republicans would field a candidate for President that is a moderate. Then many of the frustrated former Obama supporters may consider voting for him. Of course, when the unacceptable candidate appears it will simply be explained as the Republicans being idiots. And the show goes on.

So now We know that there are seven Democrats that are clean enough to have survived the Karl Rove --Dick Cheney--George Tenet--spying program on members of Congress.SEVEN !!! And We can assume these seven will--- Get To The Bottom OF This---! What a JOKE !!! Tommie27.

It's now just a matter of time. Too many people know what was done, and someone will talk. If it was death squads assassinating enemies of the state, folks are going to go to jail.

No wonder Cheney was so nervous. If he has any undisclosed locations left, he better go there. Supermax isn't so far from Wyoming.

AACCKKKK!!!

yeah they are. What a doll.

You wrote:

“The revelation that Panetta informed Congress that the CIA was “concealing significant actions” from both houses for eight years (and from himself, it seems, for four months) has led to calls from Democratic lawmakers for a full investigation into both the program, and whether any laws were broken concealing it from Congress.”

How do you reconcile this statement with the following information?

“Beginning in 2002, Nancy Pelosi and other key Democrats (as well as Republicans) on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were thoroughly, and repeatedly, briefed on the CIA's covert antiterror interrogation programs. They did nothing to stop such activities, when they weren't fully sanctioning them. If they now decide the tactics they heard about then amount to abuse, then by their own logic they themselves are complicit. Let's review the history the political class would prefer to forget.

According to our sources and media reports we've corroborated, the classified briefings began in the spring of 2002 and dealt with the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a high-value al Qaeda operative captured in Pakistan. In succeeding months and years, more than 30 Congressional sessions were specifically devoted to the interrogation program and its methods, including waterboarding and other aggressive techniques designed to squeeze intelligence out of hardened detainees like Zubaydah.

The briefings were first available to the Chairmen and ranking Members of the Intelligence Committees. From 2003 through 2006, that gang of four included Democrats Bob Graham and John D. Rockefeller in the Senate and Jane Harman in the House, as well as Republicans Porter Goss, Peter Hoekstra, Richard Shelby and Pat Roberts. Senior staffers were sometimes present. After September 2006, when President Bush publicly acknowledged the program, the interrogation briefings were opened to the full committees.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123120464870255997.html

Events dictate action. The CIA engaged in something that it kept from its new director for over 5 months and from Congress for over 8 years. When Director Panetta learned about it, he stopped the program and informed Congress. That's one reason, among many, that I think Panetta is an outstanding public servant then (in former years) and now

Even if there is a full report by Panetta, and one from the Inspector General (IG), there needs to be a Congressional investigation by the House and Senate separately with outside counsel and subpoena power. Not only do we need to know what happended, but we need to know what in the structure and system allowed such gross secrecy and abuse of power to happen. Who ordered it and who is responsible, at high levels, for obeying orders to create these horrendous actions and organizations.

Let us all hope Seymour Hersh and Jane Mayer are on the case.

We need their probing journalism to help us all keep shaking things up.