GOP Attack On New Interrogation Task Force

The frame with which Republicans might try to attack the administration for its new high-value detainee task force is kind of unusual. In a statement, Sen. Kit Bond, a long-time member of the intelligence committee, accuses the administration of hurting morale at CIA by putting the FBI and the NSC in charge of a select group of detainees.  Then he says this: "Chrysler and Citigroup apparently weren't enough; now the White House is taking over the CIA and how we interrogate Usama bin Laden. Even the Democrats' favorite boogeyman Dick Cheney's did not take over terrorist interrogations."   (This is one reason why the White House tried to insist today that the NSC wouldn't meddle in operational details, but it's hard to figure out where operations begin and policy ends.)  So -- basically -- the Bond-led attack is that the White House is trying to consolidate control over everything in American life, even though, from the perspective of CIA and, probably, many Republicans, the Obama HIG is a welcome development.