A Choice I Can Live With
It’s Silvestre Reyes for the House Intelligence Committee after all. While Harman would have been the best choice, Pelosi did America a favor by bypassing Alcee Hastings. And Reyes has some things to say that I like to hear:
Known as “Silver” to friends, Reyes is a Purple Heart winner who was drafted into the Army and served during 1966-68 as a helicopter crew chief and gunner. His service included 13 months in Vietnam.
He rose through the ranks during 26 years of service in the Border Patrol, leaving as a senior law enforcement official in Texas in 1995. He won his seat in Congress the next year.
Under Democratic control, his committee is expected to increase public oversight of some of the most difficult issues facing the United States, including terrorism, Iraq and government surveillance. Given the committee’s inherently secret nature, much of the work will have to be done behind closed doors.
In an interview this month, Reyes said he will insist on more information about the Bush administration’s most classified programs and how they are working. The Republicans, he said, have made a habit of rubber-stamping those programs.
He also wants to look at the role of intelligence three years after the war in Iraq and the state of traditional spycraft, now referred to as “human intelligence.”
“We haven’t required or haven’t had the administration give us the details, evaluation or plan of how these classic programs are functioning,” he said.
Reyes is considered less partisan than Hastings, and signaled that the day after the election when he praised the selection of former CIA Director Robert Gates to replace Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Reyes noted that Gates served in Republican and Democratic administrations, giving him a bipartisan background. “I do look forward to hearing from him and what his ideas are,” he said, particularly on the administration’s new direction in Iraq.
Reyes believes that the U.S. must increase its military strength to face the current threats in Iraq, that the Bush administration must forge better alliances, and that Iraqi militias must be disbanded. “We cannot and we should not tolerate these private armies with these warlords,” he said.
That stance on Iraq is admirable, and somewhat shocking coming from a Democrat, but quite welcome…
UPDATE 11:35 a.m.: Maybe I’m all wrong on Reyes; Reuters describes him as anti-Iraq War, though he certainly doesn’t sound it from the quote above…
UPDATE 2:49 p.m.: I guess Reyes is against the war, but he seems pretty reasonable about it, at least initially:
Reyes opposed the use of force in Iraq and has joined other Democrats in criticizing the administration for intelligence failures during the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, according to a 2005 analysis by the National Journal of Reyes’ legislative record. He also has opposed embedding reporters with military units.
Speaking to reporters Friday, Reyes also said the committee will be help define the balance between security and civil rights.
“I don’t think anyone debates that we’re in a very dangerous world. I think we need to be pragmatic in the way that we approach the things that will keep it safe, but making sure that we don’t forfeit our rights, guarantees under the Constitution. That’s a fine line that we need to walk,” Reyes said.
I’m sure Nancy Pelosi will be so relieved to hear of that.
We’ll see how happy you are about it once the extremely aggressive investigations into the warrantless eavesdropping program commence, followed by equally aggressive (at least) investigations into all those nice trips Dick Cheney and friends made to the CIA analysts to “encourage” them to be a bit less skeptical about all of that persuasive information being fed to them by Ahmad Chalabi’s friends about all of those chemical and biological weapons which we “knew” were in Iraq.
Having said all of that, for someone who was oh-so-earnestly-interested in the all-important question of who the next Chairman would be, you have surprisingly little to say now that Pelosi has made her choice (although as little as it is, it’s more than most right-wing commentators who had suddenly developed such an intense (and genuine) interest in this position). But I’m sure once you spend the weekend studying up on Sylvestre Reyes, we’ll be hearing much more analysis from you about this extremely important selection for this extremely important post.
After all, this blog was a veritable library on the merits of Pete Hoekstra.
Thanks, Glenn, for coming by to piss on me…I guess the exposé the MinuteMan and I did on your completely false premise of Hastings being a ‘media invention’ stuck in your craw…anyway, nice to see you’re not bitter.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!…
Remember the comity that used to exist between your commenters, exemplified by liberal commenters like the often off-target, but always well-reasoned, polite and respectful Peter? That was one of the things that drew me to this blog. The commenters could dissect all of the issues contained within a post, and express the opposing sides to an argument, without sniping at each other, hurling accusations, and generally being boorish. Well, it’s apparent that those days are over with. Thanks, Glenn, for demonstrating exactly what I mean. If you want to start fights, can’t you just do it on your own blog, and leave the comments section to liberals more thoughtful and well-intentioned that yourself?
Well, Colin’s right, and I wasn’t exactly polite myself, either, so on the off chance that Greenwald comes back:
Glenn, I never cared so much about who GOT the post, as I did about who DIDN’T. The opposition to Hastings was quite real, and it wasn’t based on animus to Pelosi so much as it was based on the quite reasonable conviction that a corrupt, impeached individual had no business holding such a sensitive position.
I DO care about finding out more about Reyes, but it’s not as important to me as the fact that at least the job didn’t go to Hastings…
You must be having an impact, Mark, otherwise the great and powerful Glenn Greenwald wouldn’t deign to visit your site, much less leave a (snarky) comment.
The Republicans lost the election and so have no say in who is appointed. Doesn’t mean they don’t have an interest and are banned from expressing an opinion.
As for all this expected aggressive investigating, we shall see. There is a substantial political downside to publicly challenging a program that is designed to identify threats to our nation and its people. These lofty positions of power in our government have practical political limitations.
I’ve been commenting on Mark’s blog for many months now, and he has commented on mine.
Relatively speaking (meaning compared to the exchanges other bloggers with different opinions typically have), the exchanges between Mark and me are typically and civil respectful. There have been exceptions on both sides (such as the time he said that I was worse than Mark Foley, an accusation for which he apologized later), or just the other day (when he said about an argument I made: ” anyone with a third-grade education knows that’s dead wrong”). I’m sure there were times when I was gratuitiously insulting as well (although I don’t recall his ever complaining about that).
In the scheme of my things, the comment I left today may not have been the model of sober discourse, but it had its points to make and it was hardly some grave violation of basic human decency such that it signals the decline of the high-minded quality of Mark’s comment section.
I’m pretty sure that Mark has the ability to ban commenters whenever he wants, so if I begin single-handedly eroding the standards of decency and nobility which prevail on this blog, Mark has his remedies.
The Chairman of the Intelligence Committee has some greater access to classified information than the regular Members — but only some. Standard members of the Intelligence Member have a great deal of access to highly classified information.
Alcee Hastings has been on the Committee for several years. If he is such a security risk, why has (a) nobody ever complained previously and (b) his fellow Committee members, including Republicans, been largely complimentary of the work he performed?
I’ve got a thick enough skin to get by our occasional snarkiness…and as I’ve told Glenn and his readers before, at least at our two blogs people can come on and disagree without being labeled trolls and banned.
As to the substance of Glenn’s second comment, I think people really weren’t very aware of Alcee Hastings’ background until he started being floated as the chair (and that holds true regardless of who you think did the floating). Once his background became more widely known, it’s a no-brainer that this is not the man you appoint to this position if you’re serious about ‘changing the culture’ of Washington…
Thanks Colin, I appreciate the compliment (even if I am allegedly off-target). I try to be polite and respectful — we all see as through a glass darkly, and it pays to be humble as none of us has a monopoly on the Truth. (Except my wife.)