Followed Up By A Sucker Punch

To accompany today's "CIA as the victim here" leak story in the WaPo, we have WaPo's own columnist Michael Gerson to lead the Village scolding offensive.

Is there any precedent for a speaker of the House of Representatives seeking political shelter by blaming national security professionals? Or for a commander in chief exposing intelligence methods at the urging of the American Civil Liberties Union? Actually, such treatment has precedents. In 1975, the Church Committee nearly destroyed the human intelligence capabilities of the CIA. In the early 1990s, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan urged closing the agency entirely. The Clinton administration imposed massive budget cuts, leaving behind a demoralized institution.

And now Obama has described the post-Sept. 11 period as "a dark and painful chapter in our history." In fact, whatever your view of waterboarding, the response of intelligence professionals following Sept. 11 was impressive. Within days, the CIA had linked up with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and begun preparations to remove the Taliban. The counterterrorism center run of out CIA headquarters was the war on terror in the months after the attacks, making daily progress in capturing high-value targets. Now the president and his party have done much to tarnish those accomplishments. So much for the thanks of a grateful nation.

You know what must have really been demoralizing for the CIA?

Working for Bush and Cheney. Having the President ignore the CIA on 9/11 chatter preceding the attack and saying "Well, you've covered your ass." Having the Joker and the Penguin there twist their hard-earned intel to justify starting a war. Having them torture people to get evidence they knew was false, trapping them in a no-win situation. Having them purge the ranks of those career agents who resisted being the propaganda arm of BushCo instead of America's intelligence defense.

What Obama and the Democrats are doing to the CIA is painful, but necessary. The last remnants of the Bush cancer must be excised. But let's not forget who got the CIA into this untenable situation in the first place, Mr. Gerson.

It wasn't the Democrats.