Republicans are back to their ususal election year trick of fear-mongering, attacking--of all people--John Brennan, the former Bush director of the National Counterterrorism Center and current counter-terror chief. Kit Bond has called for him to step down, primary because Brennan has been taken the lead in fighting against Republicans attempts to protray Obama as weak on national security.
The White House is on the offense:
The White House is now dismissing Bond’s efforts as “pathetic,” and pointing to Brennan’s lifetime of professional intelligence experience as proof that Bond is putting politics over our national security. Asked for comment on Bond’s broadside, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro emails over a brief and dismissive comment:
“Through his pathetic attack on a counter-terrorism professional like John Brennan who has spent his lifetime protecting this country under multiple Administrations, Senator Bond sinks to new depths in his efforts to put politics over our national security.”
The conventions of political journalism for some reason discourage doing this, but it’s worth pointing out that the White House is right.
Bond’s position, quite literally, is that Brennan should step down because he’s fought back aggressively against GOP efforts to paint Obama’s policies as weak on terror. As Bond put it: “We have to wonder whether we can trust [Brennan] after he has been a mouthpiece for the political arm that I thought only came out of the White House press office.”
Brennan is no friend to the left. We fought his appointment to head the CIA because of his justification for the most egregious unlawful Bush policies of torture and warrantless surveillance. Kind of ironic, huh, that this would be man Bond attacks. And yes, pathetic, on Bond's part.