Cheney 'ordered CIA to hide plan'

DICK CHENEY DID IT

And yet this issue, the economic crisis as a political problem, has still not hit home, or outraged public opinion as the reports about that the man we all love to hate. The Dick Cheney has been outed by CIA Director for keeping Congress in the Dark about some of his most paranoid programs.Its hard for me to believe that members of Congress were as uninformed as they claim—what country were they living in, didn’t they read all the exposes. In any event, reality is not reality unless the front page of the New York Times takes note, as it did Sunday:

The Daily Beast made sense of the Timese language—used to bury important details this way:

More secrets emerge about the Bush administration. Former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the concealment of a secret CIA counterterrororism program for eight years, The New York Times reports, though the scope of the program is unknown. CIA Director Leon Panetta told the Senate and House intelligence committees that he ended the program when he first learned about it from subordinates on June 23. Officials say the program did not involve the much-criticized CIA interrogation program or domestic intelligence gathering.

“They have said the program was started by the counterterrorism center at the C.I.A. shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but never became fully operational, involving planning and some training that took place off and on from 2001 until this year,” The Times reports. Congressional officials differ on the program’s significance. The news comes on the heels of an inspectors general report that said only three lawyers in the Department of Justice knew of President Bush’s secret domestic wiretapping program.

Newsweek had more suggesting that the cautiously cautious Obamacrats, possibly emboldened with their leader in Africa are hinting that they might do Something although our attorney decision is hoping that “that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president’s agenda.” He is talking about himself here.

The Obama administration may not be so quick to “turn the page,” after all: Newsweek reports that Attorney General Eric Holder “is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation practices, something the president has been reluctant to do.” Holder’s decision could come within weeks and Holder himself says “I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president’s agenda,” he says. “But that can’t be a part of my decision.” Holder has asked for a list of 10 candidates for special prosecutor, five from within the administration and five from without.

What can we expect? Most of the journalists who covered this most intensely fear a cover-up:

Rob Kall of Op Ed News: Attorney General Holder Considering Opening Torture Investigation– Like the Failed Abu Ghraib Lynddie England Coverup? A limited investigations of the worst torture abuse could bopened by AG Holder, but probably not investigations into John Yoo and torture policy and decision makers.

Jason Leopold reminds us:

Yoo Gave Bush White House Retroactive Legal Cover to Spy on Americans

The President’s Surveillance Program (PSP) was far more expansive than the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP), the report said, while the TSP allowed the NSA to spy on Americans’ telephone calls without a warrant. The PSP went much further and remains classified and Yoo worked directly with White House officials on the PSP as he was the only official in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel who was aware of program