The cleansing of intelligence

There has been much outrage from the left on Bush's decision to purge the CIA of those who disagree with him, and I have my reservations as well. It seems clear to me that a bunch of yes men are not going to do much good for American intelligence.

But Captain Ed says the left is getting exactly what it asked for:

One of the continuing themes of the 9/11 Commission and the presidential campaign was the poor quality of the intel going to the President prior to both 9/11 and the Iraq war. Democrats pushed for change, and the Bush administration has delivered... Now Bush has named his own CIA Director, who is busily replacing career officers in order to effect a new mindset at Langley, and hopefully a decidedly less political one than had been demonstrated over the past few years.

Democrats pushed for a change, certainly, for a more accountable and fluid CIA. Not a CIA that parrots whatever the administration it serves currently wants to hear. And I'm not sure how, in the Captain's eyes, appointing those loyal to a right wing conservative is going to make the institution "decidedly less political."

I think one of the complaints running up to 9/11 was that Bush chose to ignore intelligence and briefings that would have warned him of an impending attack, as well as a lack of coordination between the agencies. The complaint leading up to Iraq was that Bush choose to ignore (sense a pattern here) any intelligence that did not confirm what he wanted to hear regarding Iraq. Putting more "loyalists" in charge is not going to fix any of that.

Ed then points us to QandO, which mocks any outrage from the left and points out a right wing think tank paper that claims Clinton did it, too, so the left should stop whining. I have news for Ed, QandO, and everyone who wants to play this game: just because one side has done it does not make it right. Ten years from now, when there is another Democratic president in the White House and something like this occurs, you have lost all credibility to complain. Rather than finding a paper that makes claims of Clinton's purging to "discredit" those left bloggers, why not find actual statements they made in regard to it?

I never supported everything Clinton did, and I'm sure that many, even though they feel he was one of the best presidents in a generation disagreed with certain policies as well. Partisan purging of the CIA so it toes the party line should never occur. Justifying it with the "you did it before" excuse does not make it right, either. I would hope Ed and friends would agree with that rather than trying to dispel the criticism.

That may be too much to hope.

*UPDATE* More from Josh Marshall:

On every significant point of conflict between the Bush administration and the country's cadre of intelligence professionals, the Bush political appointees turned out to be wrong. Often very wrong, and with disastrous consequences. Sometimes the intel folks were wrong too; but when that was so, the appointees were always more wrong.

This is not argumentative or hyperbole or even up for much serious dispute.

And the upshot of all that we've seen, the result of all those struggles over the last three years is that the 'appointees' are purging the 'professionals'. Another way to put it is that the folks who were always wrong and often catastrophically wrong are rooting out the folks who were often right and sometimes somewhat wrong. The answer to politicized intelligence, it turns out, is a more thorough politicization of intelligence and the elimination of those who resisted political pressure.

If you think this is just a Washington squabble or political debating point you'd be mistaken. Because your lives, and those of your families and friends, may very well be on the line.