Feinstein winning fight with CIA, Obama over torture report

[alp227]

Washington -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California's senior senator and a longtime hawk on national defense, is leading an epic constitutional struggle against unlikely foes: the CIA and fellow Democrat President Obama. So far, she's winning.

The former mayor of San Francisco now chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, where since 2009 she has led an investigation into charges that the United States tortured terrorism suspects during the George W. Bush administration in violation of U.S. laws and international treaties, including the Geneva Convention, and lied about it to Congress.

Feinstein opened the investigation after the committee became concerned about CIA destruction of videotapes documenting what it called "enhanced interrogations." These included sleep deprivation, confinement in stress positions and simulated drownings known as waterboarding. Feinstein said at the outset that she expected the review to last little more than six months.

Ferocious resistance by the CIA has turned the investigation into a 5 1/2-year saga that has become one of the most important constitutional struggles in Senate history and is likely to be one of the 81-year-old Feinstein's most enduring legacies.

full: http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Feinstein-winning-fight-with-CIA-Obama-over-5679304.php

[villager]

1. Who would've thought Obama would wind up even to the right of Feinstein?

Or rather, who would've thought that during the campaign of '08?

[HooptieWagon]

3. No surprise.

The Third Way has been falling all over each other to tack further to the right. Hillary is moving even further right than Obama. It appears they're willing to write off a sizeable portion of the Democratic Party in order to appease their corporate masters.

[Demit]

4. Who would've thought in 2008 we were electing a man who excused torture.

I didn't.

[villager]

5. Nor did I. I guess all that campaign rhetoric...

...wound up being "off the table."

[BrotherIvan]

9. Who would have thought that electing a politician

would cause your fellow Democrats to excuse torture? That one is the most shocking.

[Demit]

10. As we know, some of our fellow Dems think torture has "nuance."

And that it is a "complex issue."

[BrotherIvan]

11. You have to be a dictator in order to uphold the law

And that the far-left, fringe left, and leftists who don't justify torture are just whiny, racist crybabies who just wanted a pony.

[Demit]

13. Torture is such an ugly word, Brother I! Let's just call it 'some bad things'

We don't want to be accused of being sanctimonious, do we?

[BrotherIvan]

15. If that's all I get accused of, it's been a good day

[BrotherIvan]

8. Good Lord, I never thought I would be rooting for DiFi

I've loathed her since she ruined the SF skyline and have never once voted for her. Proving the stopped clock rule definitively. Stange days indeed.

[CJCRANE]

2. We need to get some of our moral respect back.

Releasing the report is a start.

[AtomicKitten]

7. unredacted

Americans deserve the unvarnished truth.

[Octafish]

6. Those responsible for torture were only following orders.

Didn't matter at Nurenberg and it doesn't matter now.

Glenn Greenwald detailed why before he was thrown under the bus:

http://www.salon.com/2011/05/13/nuremberg_5/

[Hekate]

12. When I think of all the thrashings DiFi has taken at DU... Go DiFi!!!! and for gods' sake ...

...keep the Senate in Democratic hands so she can continue this work.

[freshwest]

14. YES! Did anyone know she'd been on it all this time? And yes, give her a chance to release it...

Because it will be buried under 8 years of GOP rule if they win the Senate.

We have some good people running, but the older ones are finally retiring and their seats are likely to fall into GOP hands. We must help them do this work.