Democrats Lack Intelligence

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recently claimed that she knew nothing of the CIA practice of waterboarding, only to be exposed as a liar: She was briefed in 2002. Now, Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), Chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, is helping to circle the wagons. A letter written by the congressman was leaked this week alleging that the CIA “misled” and “affirmatively lied to” Congress about its activities after 9/11. CIA Director Leon Panetta continues to deny such allegations, but as Investor’s Business Daily writes, “[C]learly Panetta testified to something big in closed session that Democrats are now using to clobber our spies.” Panetta is a former Democrat congressman and knows how to play the Beltway game. Evidently, he’s a double agent.

An intelligence authorization bill before Congress would, as The Wall Street Journal put it, “hobble the CIA and further handcuff the executive branch” because “gone would be the right of the President to limit disclosure of sensitive information to the so-called Gang of Eight — the House Speaker and Minority Leader, Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, and the Chairmen and ranking Members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. This authority would pass to Congress. The bill would also expand disclosure requirements for all sorts of intelligence activities.” As the Journal concludes, “Congress wants to know about, and often second-guess, intelligence decisions without being responsible for the result.”