A Little Old School Fascism For New School Bloggers

A former CIA spy comes clean about Bush-era abuses of power targeting anti-war bloggers during Bush's second term.

Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war.

In an interview, Mr. Carle said his supervisor at the National Intelligence Council told him in 2005 that White House officials wanted “to get” Professor Cole, and made clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to collect information about him, an effort Mr. Carle rebuffed. Months later, Mr. Carle said, he confronted a C.I.A. official after learning of another attempt to collect information about Professor Cole. Mr. Carle said he contended at the time that such actions would have been unlawful.

It is not clear whether the White House received any damaging material about Professor Cole or whether the C.I.A. or other intelligence agencies ever provided any information or spied on him. Mr. Carle said that a memorandum written by his supervisor included derogatory details about Professor Cole, but that it may have been deleted before reaching the White House. Mr. Carle also said he did not know the origins of that information or who at the White House had requested it. 

If you think Juan Cole was the only blogger the Bushies went after, you're mad.  I've long suspected stuff like this happened, but to have confirmation of it is quite another thing.  This is what real fascism looks like, sending the CIA after people who publicly disagree with the policies of the administration.

Par for the course.  But of course we have to leave the past behind us...