A.M. ANNOYANCE - Generally Accepted Accountability Practices
Shaken, barely stirred
The release of almost 700 pages of CIA documents referred to as “the family jewels” have added some minor details to the historical record about the Agency’s abuses of power in the 1970s.
More revealing is the attitude taken by the CIA. According to an AP report “CIA spokesman George Little said [CIA Director] Hayden has been declassifying historic documents as a way of demonstrating CIA’s accountability.”
Way to step up to the plate, guys.
Nearly 40 years later, you release some ancillary papers that shed some marginal new information that it took years of Congressional panels and Freedom of Information Act requests to wrench out of the Agency in the first place.
You’ll forgive me if, when I think about ways of “demonstrating accountability,” this is not the first example that comes to my mind.
With this kind of accountability, the nominations for the next CIA director should come down to Pete Rose and Barry Bonds.
According to most polls, public confidence in government is at scraping along at an all-time low. This new information and the self-congratulatory claptrap accompanying it should help make sure public faith in government stays at subterranean levels for awhile.
Wake up, folks. Checks and balances aren’t any good if you don’t use them.
CIA, family jewels, Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, government accountability,
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