I've made a couple of posts about the release of news about the CIA taking detainees to prisons in the former Soviet bloc, apparently where they can be, well, tortured. There was interesting news today of Frist and Hastert (the Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House, respectively) demanding an investigation into the leak, followed by Senator Trent Lott admitting that the leaker was probably another Republican senator. Several points about this:
First, as Josh Marshall points out, this whole mess is closely related to the CIA agent outing at least in the generalities if not in the particulars. They are "cut from the same cloth," as he says, in that they both point to the Administration's practice of clandestinely using excessive and unethical means to achieve its military ends. Despite the fact that all the press for one has been momentarily deflected to Scooter Libby, and the other to some Senate leaker, both of these acts leave a sordid trail that unswervingly leads to the White House, and we would do well not to be distracted from that fact.
Second, leaking to the press the fact that our government is torturing detainees in the infamous sites of former abuse is no dishonorable act. I say that the person who leaked this information, be they Republican or otherwise, is guilty only of putting their country ahead of their president, and should be punished only by sonorous applause.
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