The Blog

Brennan Out

1:23 PM, Nov 25, 2008 • By MICHAEL GOLDFARB
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The left gets its first scalp:

John Brennan, President-elect Barack Obama's top adviser on intelligence, has taken his name out of the running for any intelligence position in the new administration.

In a letter Tuesday, Brennan wrote letter to Obama that he did not want to be a distraction. His potential appointment has raised a firestorm in liberal blogs who associate him with the Bush administration's interrogation, detention and rendition policies.

"The fact that I was not involved in the decisionmaking process for any of these controversial policies and actions has been ignored," he wrote, in a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

In the end, the responsibility of governing will lead Obama to many of the same war on terror policies that Bush endorsed -- just as he came to support telecom immunity when the chips were down. Surely whomever Obama appoints to head the CIA will be someone he views as pragmatic, and hopefully ruthless as well. But consider this another early sign of overreach: if conservatives want to stage a comeback, they should be heartened by any evidence that Obama is catering to the loudest, and most ideological, elements of the Democratic base.

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