Feinstein: Senate Intel Committee May Investigate CIA Targeting of Cole

[pampango]

http://www.juancole.com/2011/06/feinstein-senate-intel-committee-may-investigate-cia-targeting-of-cole.html

Senator Diane Feinstein says that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence may open an investigation into allegations that the Bush White House attempted to use the CIA to have my reputation destroyed in 2005-2006. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) refuses to have the House intelligence committee look into it, trying to kick it to Eric Holder at the Department of Justice. If the House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee is not interested in whether the Bush White House and the CIA broke the law by targeting an American author on US soil, then frankly we have an answer to Ben Franklin’s concerns; after the Constitutional Convention he is said to have been asked about the form of the new government and to have replied, “A Republic– if you can keep it.” Guess not so much.

The Boston Globe editorial board differs with Rogers, calling for a full congressional investigation as well as one by the CIA Inspector General. The Globe notes that then Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte’s response to the scandal, that he has no memory of the event but that others in his office may have been approached by the White House about me, is hardly a decisive refutation of the charges. Negroponte is now “a research fellow and lecturer in international affairs at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.”

Well if all this could be an occasion finally to look into the propaganda campaign whereby we were inveigled into the Iraq War, that would make it all worth it. But actually I don’t know what passions could any longer be stirred about it. Most people know the whole thing was a joint Oil Man/ Neocon get-up job.

Salon.com has put together a reading list of my articles for them in the period during which the Bush White House was interested in having the CIA “get” me.

[leveymg]

1. Interesting coincidence that Negroponte was appointed at Yale, but Cole's '06 appointment there

was scuttled:

Wiki: In 2006 Cole was nominated to teach at Yale University and was approved by both Yale's sociology and history departments. However, the senior appointments committee overruled the departments, and Cole was not appointed.

According to "several Yale faculty members," the decision to overrule Cole's approval was "highly unusual."<9> Yale Deputy Provost Charles Long stated that "Tenure appointments at Yale are very complicated and they go through several stages, and can fail to pass at any of the stages. Every year, at least one and often more fail at one of these levels, and that happened in this case."<10> The history department vote was 13 yes, 7 no, with 3 abstentions.<11> Professors interviewed by the Yale Daily News said "the faculty appeared sharply divided."<10>

Yale historian Paula Hyman commented that the deep divisions in the appointment committee were the primary reasons that Cole was rejected: "There was also concern, aside from the process, about the nature of his blog and what it would be like to have a very divisive colleague."<10> Yale political science professor Steven B. Smith commented, "It would be very comforting for Cole's supporters to think that this got steamrolled because of his controversial blog opinions. The blog opened people's eyes as to what was going on."<12> Another Yale historian, John M. Merriman, said of Cole's rejection: "In this case, academic integrity clearly has been trumped by politics."<13>