Never Mind The Cheney, Here Comes The Bombshells

While we're on the subject today of investigating unfinished Bush business, here's another in that series of bombshells from what's turning into the longest Friday news dump in history of Friday news dumps. And guess who it involves?

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

Yeah, you knew the Nameless One had to be behind all this.

The disclosure about Mr. Cheney’s role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general’s report underscored the central role of the former vice president’s office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded had hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.

An intelligence agency spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, declined on Saturday to comment on the report of Mr. Cheney’s role.

“It’s not agency practice to discuss what may or may not have been said in a classified briefing,” Mr. Gimigliano said. “When a C.I.A. unit brought this matter to Director Panetta’s attention, it was with the recommendation that it be shared appropriately with Congress. That was also his view, and he took swift, decisive action to put it into effect.”

Watch the Sunday shows on this one. We're going to see the usual suspects declare we can't investigate, we can't go back, we can't look at Cheney or his "robust interrogation methods" or anything else, or Obama's agenda will get "hijacked" or "delayed" or "put on the back burner" or pick your own euphemism for "If Obama doesn't kick Eric Holder's ass on this, we will make sure his agenda dies screaming."

Of course, the Village wants to see both Obamacare and climate change legislation deader than Nixon. They're trying to kill it and have been for a while now. But the threats were never this open until today. Watch how the Village will define the torture investigation and Obama's health care and climate change agenda as an either/or proposition. The Wise Villagers will tell us tomorrow on TV that Congress simply will not be able to do both...

And of course, they will say that "he's trying to do too much" and he will get nothing instead. Congress will be "paralyzed by partisan rancor." Obama will risk "poisoning the atmosphere with this investigation."

Which is exactly what the Village wants.

Watch tomorrow.