I Think This Is More Revealing Than They Planned
If you read this New York Times article on the first day of confirmation hearings for General Michael Hayden, one fact jumps out at me.
Many US Senators are very whiny people.
I mean, this kind of juvenile behavior is pretty funny when you step back and look at it.
There were two types of senators at Thursday's confirmation hearing for Gen. Michael V. Hayden: the briefed, and the briefed-nots.
The former were mostly polite. The latter, especially Democrats, threw the Congressional equivalent of a temper tantrum.
It wasn't equivalent at all, it was a temper tantrum.
Ms. Feinstein opened her remarks by saying she had proposed legislative language that would amend the National Security Act to require that all committee members be briefed on sensitive programs, and in the "very rare cases where only certain members are briefed," the others receive a summary.
In a sense, the hearing tapped into a Congressional inferiority complex that has been particularly acute under Mr. Bush, who has taken a muscular approach to expanding the executive branch's authority. Lawmakers like to say Congress is a "co-equal branch" of government; nothing irks them more than when the White House punctures that balloon.
"It's such an affront to the balance of powers," Ms. Feinstein said in an interview, "and it's what this administration has been doing, which is gathering executive power and dismissing the Congress."
I know the left likes to say the administration is doing this or that to "expand Presidential powers". But when you read this you wonder if it isn't really that some politicians simply resent not being let into the secret - whatever secret may be the topic of discussion. I have no way of judging why the administration kept the circle of people briefed on this (or any other) program small - incidentally, neither does anyone on the left. There may have been reasonable grounds for doing so. I am not aware of anyone who has been briefed in going on the record against the program.
