Teri O'Brien  

Today’s headlines: “Obama open to torture memo prosecutions.” (Washington Times) “Probes of Bush Officials Loom” (Wall Street Journal)$0$0$0$0Given the following information, I think my headline (above) is more appropriate; specifically, $0$0$0$0$0The Obama administration's top intelligence official said "high-value information" was obtained in interrogations that included the harsh methods approved by President George W. Bush.$0$0Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair made the assertion in a memo dated Thursday that was intended for employees of the intelligence community. Mr. Blair's spokesman could not be reached for comment.$0$0Stephen Dinan, Washington Times, $0$0$0$0$0The documents [those released last week by the Obama administration)note that after 9/11, mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed underwent enhanced interrogation, he gave up information that helped thwart an al-Qaeda plot called the "Second Wave," in which a cell of East Asian terrorists were to highjack a plane and fly it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles.$0$0According to our intelligence community, other plots stopped thanks to enhanced interrogation include: a plot to hijack airplanes and fly them into Heathrow Airport and downtown London; a plot to blow up our consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, and our Marines camp in Djibouti; and an al-Qaeda cell that was developing anthrax for attacks on the United States. If it were not for these techniques, there would be craters in Los Angeles, London and Karachi to match the one in downtown New York. Now President Obama has shared the secret behind the success of the program that stopped these and other attacks with the enemy. At this moment, in a cave somewhere, al-Qaeda leaders are downloading these documents, and gleaning information they can use to train their operatives to withhold vital intelligence about the next attack. When the president stood before the CIA and said that this was all public, he lied — and now Americans may die.$0$0 Marc A Thiessen, former speech writer for Pres. George W. Bush and Defense Secretary, USA Today, 4/22/09$0$0$0$0$0Obama seems to think he can have it both ways -- authorizing an unprecedented disclosure of CIA operational methods and at the same time galvanizing a clandestine service whose best days, he told them Monday, are "yet to come." Life doesn't work that way -- even for charismatic politicians. Disclosure of the torture memos may have been necessary, as part of an overdue campaign to change America's image in the world. But nobody should pretend that the disclosures weren't costly to CIA morale and effectiveness.$0$0David Ignatius, Washington Post, 4/22/09$0$0$0$0$0 Like me, most of you believe that the people who conducted these interrogations, the attorneys who wrote the legal opinions, as well as former President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the rest of the administration don’t deserve prosecution for preventing another attack for 7 years. They deserve medals, as well as our eternal gratitude. Now that the Community-Organizer-in-Chief has demonstrated that, along with Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, he shares Dick “Eddie Haskell” Durbin’s disgusting, Amerika-is-always-wrong view of the brave, patriotic Americans who have kept us safe, I wonder how many innocent Americans will pay the ultimate price for his deference to his radical ideology.  Yeah, he’s “historic,” all right. Not only is he the first affirmative action president. He is the first to suggest prosecuting the previous administration. It’s not a surprise, of course, that this arrogant narcissistic zero would assume his judgement is superior to that of history. $0$0$0$0$0I ask all you hopey-changey Obama acolytes out there, is this policy what you voted for? Oprah? Bueller? $0$0$0$0$0I know that thinking about this dangerous damage to our national security is a serious bring down, and I can’t leave you all in such a depressing frame of mind. So enjoy this hilarious story, featuring 5th column media fossil Helen Thomas and Obama’s buffonish press secretary, Robert Gibbs. I guess now that the resume inflation convinced his ignorant voters that he was a “constitutional law professor,” that characterization is inoperative.$0