Reiner: Criticism of intelligence officials is “libeling America”

James Clapper

John Brennan

There’s a perverse trend going on where the Left, especially close to the center, is opening its arms to the same Bush-era neoconservatives, war hawks and establishment goons it once despised. Bush himself, noted unprosecuted war criminal who invaded countries under false pretenses, set up a worldwide torture program and slaughtered innumerable civilians, is now a beloved statesman and bathtub painter. David Frum and Bill Kristol, who between them never saw a country full of brown-skinned people they didn’t want to bomb, now enjoy Twitter fame alongside other Never-Trumpers as darlings of the #Resistance. They hate the same man we hate, so we’re supposed to forget how they perpetrated or defended some of the most monstrous acts in modern history and helped engineer a state of endless war that continues to this day.

Another group whose image is being rehabilitated are intelligence community and federal law enforcement officials, the same who, just a few years ago, were revealed to have been spying on everyone for a decade and conducting all manner of programs that several courts have since found were illegal. And that’s not counting the innocent lives they destroyed. But because they’re at loggerheads with Trump over his own shady dealings, well, have a seat, James Clapper and John Brennan, you’re officially welcome at our table now.

When you libel James Clapper and John Brennan you libel America. The desperate attack on men who have given over 90 years of dedicated service to our country is clear evidence of a conscientiousness of guilt.

— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) February 5, 2018

In case you don’t remember (as Reiner apparently doesn’t): James Clapper is the former Director of National Intelligence who, in 2013, straight-up lied to Congress when asked whether the NSA collected records on US citizens; the lie was so baldfaced it prompted Edward Snowden to blow the whistle. And because Clapper was a high-ranking government official, he was spared any consequences for his perjury, even as Congresspeople called for his resignation, which the Obama White House rebuffed. And John Brennan, former CIA director, is all that Clapper is and worse: a proud supporter of the CIA’s torture, drone assassination and rendition programs; such an ardent defender of torture, in fact, that his CIA even hacked the Senate Intelligence Committee and tried to bully them out of releasing their torture report, acts he denied before later admitting had occurred. As with Clapper, he’s never paid a price for his actions.

It’s not clear what “desperate attack” Reiner is referring to; plenty of people on both the Right and the Left have harsh things to say about these two unindicted criminals, though I suspect there are more of the former group simply because Clapper and Brennan are speaking out against Trump. But you certainly don’t need a heavy conscience to find reason to criticize people who’ve done hideously immoral things and gotten away with it, especially when they’re now paraded around as voices of reason. Criticizing them is perfectly and entirely valid, and it’s sleazy as hell to suggest otherwise.

I have to wonder whether all those good #Resistance liberals and Democrats who defend and promote the likes of Clapper, Brennan, Kristol, Frum and so on are simply ignorant of these people’s long and sorry track records, or whether they just don’t care so long as it means they have a few more pithy anti-Trump quotes to retweet.

(via @ggreenwald)