The Rank, Reeking Horror of Torturing Some Folks

[KingCharlemagne]

94. Charlie Pierce had this to say on the matter when news of the spying by CIA on the

Senate first emerged:

It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that, in one very important way, the president has lost control of his own government. The current constitutional crisis between the CIA and the Senate committee tasked with investigating its policies regarding torture during the previous administration has only one real solution that is consonant with the rule of law. Either CIA director John Brennan gets to the bottom of what his people were doing and publicly fires everyone involved, or John Brennan becomes the ex-director of the CIA. By the Constitution, this isn't even a hard call. The Senate has every legal right to investigate what was done in the name of the American people during the previous decade. It has every legal right to every scrap of information relating to its investigation, and the CIA has an affirmative legal obligation to cooperate. Period. The only way this is not true is if we come to accept the intelligence apparatus as an extra-legal, formal fourth branch of the government.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/obama-cia-john-brennan-031414 (Emphasis added)

This - the portrait of President Obama as little more than a ceremonial figurehead - is some seriously scary shit, because it raises the question of who really is in charge.