Torture is the anti-sacral ritual positioned within our American liturgy like a black Sabbath. President Obama just enunciated “sacred principles” guiding the American ethos. But former Vice-President Cheney at the same time declared a dark and perhaps necessary counterpoint: Torture may be celebrated as America’s satanic mass.

What do I mean? We do not appreciate how Western modernity made religious nationalism the successor of medieval Christendom. Hence our sacred identity in modernity has been invested in the nation state, as the President’s invocation of the sacred — speaking in our most sacred space, before our most sacred texts — shows.

America’s religious nationalism enjoined a Great War enterprise after 9-11 — Just as we embarked on a great passion to redeem humanity in World War II. But as in World War II, more primitive passions were unleashed: of punishment, revenge, and vindication.

Take this Gallup poll in December 1945, six months after war ended. More than one-third of Americans then were angry that we did not have more atomic bombs to drop on Japan. Their response shows that in the midst of American majority altruism, our ethos harbors a dedicated dark side …

Where a dark liturgy emerges. There is the protected High Mass of course: Of a stainless American mission dedicated to the redemption of humanity. But also, burrowing and impossible to eradicate is its primitive liturgical counterpoint. How to take this in?

Look first at our larger prevailing national consciousness.

Ours is integral to Western consciousness — where religious nationalism’s passions have cooled. The core national identities of our civilization are still strong. But today’s Europeans see the liturgy of battle and its promise of transcendence leading them to the killing fields of the Western Front. Now they question every ritual that might further degrade them — and foremost among them is torture.

Euros remember the role torture played in the downfall of the French 4th Republic. An entire nation was brought to the brink in part by the rust-corrosive, pervasive rituals of torture in Algerie.

We are part of this consciousness. Our prevailing majority feels as Western Europeans, that torture is the antithesis of civilization: and to practice it will lead us to perdition.

But unlike contemporary Western Europe in almost every way, the United States continues to nurture and protect a sacral primitive counterpoint. A significant American minority celebrates torture — not from evil motive but rather from virtuous vantage — and we need to know why.

I say, “celebrate” because that is its boastful venue, whether on-screen in 24 or the ringing declarations of the former Vice-President’s legionnaires.

The celebration of torture is primitive, which is to say reflective of the consciousness of traditional societies, in which an essential forcing function of collective identity lies in the often-brutal objectification of the other. Primitive societies thus shape war as a ritual affirming identity that intensifies collective belonging — against the other, the stranger.

Hence the torture excesses of the early period of the 9-11 war speak to the natural, dominant assertion of primitive American responses — seeking foremost to reestablish American national identity after an existential body blow. Thus torture was a way to renew identity in a primal way — and how few protested.

This speaks centrally too to the role of a “Primitive” minority within a society still imbued with religious nationalism. But remember too, this minority has never been coterminous with the American Military. It represents a slice across our society that is at once both very broad and very narrow.

After 9-11 this minority served a necessary purpose by reassuring a fearful American through explicit punishment. Our post-9-11 torture rituals were all about punishment. It is our reminder of how a civilized and sophisticated society defined by the paradigm of religious nationalism will nonetheless hunker down and reclaim its primitive self in straitened times. Is it any wonder that Pelosi went with the flow? Or that she denies this now?

Of course times feel less straitened now. But the Pelosi spat raises a central issue:

In existential crisis we need our Primitives — we need to keep them around. At all other times we may contentedly dust ourselves off and act civilized. But the torture contretemps has uncovered a battle between our two selves that cannot be resolved without losing a part of ourselves, and splitting our identity.

We cannot afford such a split if we are to move ahead as a nation. If we are to remain a working religious nationalism we need both the primitive and the civilized in some rough and agreeable equipoise. The primitive 20% cannot be cast off anymore more than the 80% that makes up our civilization in late modernity.

Any such split will kill us. Either we become Europe, or the Taliban. Keep pushing you ambitious courtiers of government and media, and that what you will get: a desperately riven society incapable of world leadership.

Well, it has certainly been an engaging, thoughtful, and provocative discussion so far—and it’s only Wednesday. Many of you have posted lengthy and insightful comments about Congress’ role in intelligence oversight. And you all have a lot to say about the current controversy over Speaker Pelosi and briefings on interrogation techniques. I’ve assembled a list of highlights here, but I encourage everyone to read the posts in full. I’d also like to note that two lawmakers have posted responses: Rep. Mac Thornberry, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Kit Bond, the current vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee.

Mac Thornberry: “…recent history has shown that often no objection will be lodged against an activity until the political winds change. …Effective Congressional oversight of intelligence matters presupposes that oversight will not be used to wage partisan politics and that the best interests of the country came first for our top leaders in Congress.

Michael Brenner: “Congress' self-abnegation on the issue is notable due to its nominal constitutional and statutory responsibilities; still, it is only one element in the tacit complicity of every other element of American society…”

Kit Bond: “Perhaps more than any other, the Intelligence Committee has a tradition of nonpartisan work. …This nonpartisan tradition made Speaker Pelosi’s claims that as Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee her only obligation was to win House seats even more shocking.”

Amy Zegart: “There’s a ‘Casablanca’ quality to the Pelosi-CIA dustup: Suddenly, legislators are shocked, shocked! that Congress lacks strong oversight powers in intelligence. …To be sure, the Bush Administration was not forthcoming about its most sensitive and controversial intelligence programs, and mistrust between the executive branch and Congress reached poisonous levels. But congressional oversight deficiencies long pre-date 9/11 or Dick Cheney’s delusions about a Saddam-al Qaeda conspiracy.”

Kori Schake: “It is instructive that that a seasoned political pro like Panetta sided with the Agency against [Pelosi]. The Speaker of the House has become an object lesson that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.”

Wayne White: “I have been present at closed hearings involving representatives from a number of organizations comprising the Intelligence Community and have witnessed oversimplification--even apparent evasion--by CIA representatives that I intervened to put right.”

Patrick Lang: “The Democrats are now back in power everywhere in Washington except the Supreme Court and that will be taken care of shortly. If they can't live with the memory of their acquiescence in things like waterboarding, illegal wiretapping of Americans, and "anything goes" as a slogan, they should at least have the decency not to attack those who did their duty and who can not reply.”

James Carafano: “Who is really to blame here? The president stated when he released the CIA memos that started the whole affair that his hope was to address the issue without ‘political rancor.’ Well—he failed.”

Ron Marks: “What was said by the briefers, what the leadership heard and what they remembered is likely along the lines of the Japanese movie ‘Rashomon.’ Same story, seen by four people, all with a different viewpoint. Legislators tend to be lawyers and hear material as evidence and hard fact. Executive branch people, especially intelligence officers, live in a different world of anecdote and blurry information that is constantly changing.”

Bing West: “The National Journal phrased the question to allow Ms. Pelosi to avoid personal responsibility.”

Paul Pillar: “The most constructive way to learn lessons from the current brouhaha is to ask how the oversight process might be tweaked to help it work better. …Briefing about something like the coercive interrogations should not have been limited only to the Gang of Four, a body not recognized in any statute.”

Milt Bearden: “The debate on whether or not CIA lied to [Pelosi], or misled her, is a side show, one that that will be overshadowed by the larger issues it will help gain traction. The Pelosi ruckus will probably end with a whimper, tilting more toward congressional leaders not paying attention rather than CIA misleading them.”

Winslow Wheeler: “An executive branch agency misleading Congress? Why, how shocking. In fact, it's a long honored tradition, started not decades but centuries ago. That's why the Founding Fathers crafted the Constitution as they did - empowering Congress to perform effective oversight - a function that historian Arthur M. Schlesinger deemed at least as important as the power to legislate.”

Daniel Byman: “It has become cliché to say that Congress has become more partisan, but it is useful to begin there. In terms of oversight, this has meant that Democratic members are reluctant to criticize a Democratic president, while Republicans are equally supportive of their own leaders.”

Congressional oversight of intelligence agencies and activities is very important. If Congress does not conduct independent, effective oversight, it will not be done. Yet congressional oversight is not nearly as effective as it should be, as numerous studies, including the 9/11 Commission Report, have highlighted. Oversight duties are dispersed among several committees so that in effect no entity has the responsibility or authority for oversight.

But Congress sometimes shows itself to be an irresponsible overseer. To keep intelligence matters above petty partisanship, the top leader of both parties is an ex officio member of the Intelligence Committee, receives personalized intelligence briefings, and has a dedicated staffer to monitor the Committee’s activities. Unfortunately, recent history has shown that often no objection will be lodged against an activity until the political winds change. Such an about-face is irresponsible, unfair to the intelligence professionals engaged in the activity, and makes it less likely that any risk will be taken in the future.

Part of the Speaker’s current explanation of her role in the oversight of the enhanced interrogation methods is that, while she might have been told by her staff about the briefings, she no longer had any responsibility for intelligence matters. Her job was to beat Republicans and elect enough Democrats to take over the House. The Speaker’s excuse that she saw her job as waging partisan politics and that she could not be bothered with issues such as national security may sound a note of truth, but it is downright scary when applied to intelligence oversight. Effective Congressional oversight of intelligence matters presupposes that oversight will not be used to wage partisan politics and that the best interests of the country came first for our top leaders in Congress.

Nancy Pelosi's role in the torture drama has been minor - that is one. Congress' self-abnegation on the issue is notable due to its nominal constitutional and statutory responsibilities; still, it is only one element in the tacit complicity of every other element of American society - that is two. This cravenly irresponsible behavior has been pronounced in regard to other aspects of the 'war on terror,' e.g. illegal surveillance and intrusion on the privacy of citizens - that is three. This conforms to a pattern that now covers as well the absence of any serious debate about the escalation of that 'war' in Afghanistan and into Pakistan - that is four. Fear and intimation are the main reasons for this behavior - that is five. Both have been at the heart of a willful, calculated plan to render the American public amenable to a set of radical policies designed to transform America's place in the world while giving the Executive carte blanche to exexute it as they see fit - that is six. Barack Obama shows little if any awareness of this and, by his own actions, is both perpetuating some of the most egregious of these policies and preventing the country from coming to terms with its transgressions- that is eight, and the most unfortunate of all.

Self respect, and respect for posterity, provide compelling reason to undertake a rigorous investigation of torture American style. It stemed from the national psychology post-9/11. That psychology remains prevalent. That is why we need a deliberate process of purification. It should be undertaken by a non-partisan commission – by no means a bi-partisan commission. Let us recall the serious flaws in the conduct of the 9/11 Commission. It was a bi-partisan whitewash in some important respects. For one, staff director Philip Zelikow was in regular contact by cell phone with Condeleezza Rice – his former co-author and future colleague whom he served as Counselor beginning just months after the Commission expired.

The place to begin is recognizing that American actions in the ‘war on terror’ have been driven by fear – at home and abroad. Fear that it may happen again, fear of the unknown, fear of the alien. We have panicked in an embarrassing manner. It explains not only the radical thrust of Washington’s actions in the Greater Middle East but also the dulling of critical faculties. Torture as a demonstrable matter of fact, torture as the official policy of the White House, torture without reasonable cause – has no precedent in America. Its routine occurrence in the ‘war on terror’ testifies to the amorality of those managing the country’s affairs. Its tolerance by the public, by Congress, and the accessory role played by the enabling courts before, during and after the fact add up to a national pathology.

For decades, Americans looked back on the internment of fellow citizens of Japanese ancestry as an aberration which never could happen again. Now, no such assumption can be made. Imagine this picture: Iranian armies have conquered the Middle East and have reached Morocco; an Iranian armada has sunk most of the country’s Atlantic fleet at anchor in Norfolk; and a few hundreds of thousands of American citizens of Iranian descent live clustered on the Northeastern seaboard. Is there reason to doubt that their treatment would be such as to make them envy the condition of the Nisei during WW II?

The short answer is no.

As members of Congress we have the constitutional authority and responsibility to take serious our oversight role.

In particular, those of us who serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee understand just how important this job is – because it is ultimately our job to ensure we are getting the best intelligence to protect Americans from attack. It’s also our job to ensure that the collection of intelligence meets American laws.

Perhaps more than any other, the Intelligence Committee has a tradition of nonpartisan work. Most members – both Republican and Democrat – generally understand that our intelligence is too vital to our nation’s security to politicize.

This nonpartisan tradition made Speaker Pelosi’s claims that as Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee her only obligation was to win House seats even more shocking. That’s a shame and is a disservice to the American people.

Our intelligence – and the dedicated terror-fighters who work to collect it – is far too important to play politics with it.

I am hopeful that the Senate Intelligence Committee’s review of the CIA’s terrorist interrogation program will avoid this dangerous pitfall.

Instead, the work our committee did in 2004 into prewar Iraq intelligence is an example of the nonpartisan investigation that is needed now into our CIA’s terrorist interrogation program.

The last thing we need is a witch-hunt that targets the terror-fighters who have kept us safe from attack since 9-11.

There’s a “Casablanca” quality to the Pelosi-CIA dustup: Suddenly, legislators are shocked, shocked! that Congress lacks strong oversight powers in intelligence. At her press conference last week, Speaker Pelosi seemed to suggest that intelligence oversight had become both hapless and hopeless in the Bush Administration:

“Well, they [the Bush administration] didn’t tell us everything that they were doing. And the fact is that anything we would say doesn’t matter anyway. We had to change the majority in Congress, we had to get a new president to change the policy. And that’s what we have done.”

When the only workable intelligence oversight mechanism is ousting partisan opponents, we are all in trouble.

So just who created this terrible, dysfunctional system?
Congress.

To be sure, the Bush Administration was not forthcoming about its most sensitive and controversial intelligence programs, and mistrust between the executive branch and Congress reached poisonous levels. But congressional oversight deficiencies long pre-date 9/11 or Dick Cheney’s delusions about a Saddam-al Qaeda conspiracy.

Congressional oversight of intelligence has never been very strong. For the first 30 years of the CIA’s life, “oversight” consisted of a few legislators not asking questions because they preferred not to hear the answers. Since the Church Committee investigation of the 1970s, oversight has gotten much more routinized, but not necessarily better. Today, there are permanent intelligence committees, regular hearings, staff investigations, and loads of reporting requirements. But the intelligence committees have been hindered by three major weaknesses: They lack the power of the purse; for years they imposed term limits which robbed the committees of expertise; and legislators always get rewarded more for airing the Intelligence Community’s dirty laundry than cleaning it. These deficiencies have proven exceptionally difficult to fix. Between 1991 and 2001, a dozen major bipartisan reports issued hundreds of intelligence reform recommendations. Chief among them: improving congressional oversight. But not a single congressional reform got implemented before 9/11, and Congress isn’t doing much better today. In 2007 the Senate Intelligence Committee even held a hearing on itself – and how oversight could be improved. I testified at that hearing and will never forget what Rep. Lee Hamilton—a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and Vice Chair of the 9/11 Commission-- told the committee. Wagging his finger at the Senators, Hamilton warned both Democrats and Republicans that history would judge them:

“To me, the strong point simply is that the Senate of the United States and the House of the United States is not doing its job. And because you're not doing the job, the country is not as safe as it ought to be….Now, this is not a trivial matter. You're not dealing with the jurisdiction of the Education Committee, where it doesn't make very much difference, frankly, who has the control of it. You're dealing here with the national security of the United States, and the Senate and the House ought to have the deep down feeling that we've got to get this thing right.”

Hamilton and fellow 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer were asked what grade they would give Congress for improving intelligence oversight since 9/11. Their answer: D+.

That Congresswoman Pelosi was deferential to the Executive branch on a national security issue in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks is not surprising -- it was a frightening time for the country and many of the checks and balances in our governmental system were not exercised as vigorously as they might have been. What makes the Speaker of the House fair game for the trouble she's experiencing is her punitive stance toward the hard choices others were making, and her self-righteousness about her own role.

Democrats probably believed there was no down-side to threatening Bush Administration officials and national security professionals with prosecution. In fact, the longer Democrats run against the Bush Administration, the less they will have to justify the staggering debt this President and this Congress are running up. But the problem with this strategy comes when (a) leading Democrats are found to be complicit in the Bush Administration's choices; and (b) the Obama Administration chooses to continue policies in areas like indefinite detention of prisoners, trying suspects before military commissions, and withholding damaging information from the public. Both of these have now come to pass.

CIA Director Panetta tried to give her an exit with honor last week; she repaid that courtesy by directly accusing the CIA of lying to her, forcing Panetta's hand. It is instructuve that that a seasoned political pro like Panetta sided with the Agency against her. The Speaker of the House has become an object lesson that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Regardless of how I feel about Speaker Pelosi's allegations regarding the briefing she received on torture from the CIA, it is unfortunate that in many cases Congress is at considerable disadvantage in playing the important oversight role it should with respect to matters related to national intelligence. This is not limited to the inherent problem concerning the almost instinctive desire to scale back that role when the President's own party is in the driver's seat on Capitol Hill.

As with the briefings provided in the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War, Congress does not receive from the Intelligence Community anything approaching the sheer volume of the material available to the Community--even the White House--on any given subject. Sometimes, for example, dissenting views have received scant attention in such briefings, in part because CIA is pressed to some degree to perform an advocacy role in support of Administration policy. Additionally, even the full flavor of the extensive flow of intelligence available to the Intelligence Community on any given subject is not, and perhaps cannot, be conveyed to the recipients of CIA briefings and materials on the Hill. Moreover, I have been present at closed hearings involving respresentatives from a number of organizations comprising the Intelligence Community and have witnessed oversimplification--even apparent evasion--by CIA representatives that I intervened to put right. One wonders how some CIA briefings are conducted when other intelligence agencies are not present to be heard and, again, when there is great pressure from the White House for CIA to assist in selling a specific policy line. Also, compared to the thousands of intelligence analysts and operatives at the disposal of the executive branch, the Congress possesses relatively few staffers to review intelligence material in detail and with adequate expertise in any case. Finally, as with the White House, whereas the CIA and other organs of the Intelligence Community are free to concentrate most all their efforts on largely international intelligence issues, the limited resources, time and attention the Congress can bring to bear on these issues is compressed greatly by the vast number of competing US domestic concerns on its plate at any given time.

If someone lied in this case it was probably NOT the CIA. People often hear and see what they want to hear and see. IIn the year of collective fear and hysteria after 9/11 it must have been easy to avoid thinking about what the "bullets" on the Power Point charts really meant. After all, they were just talking about terrorists, weren't they? The nation has now "sobered up" somewhat, and it is now hard to look at what was done by and for us, the people of the United States.

Nevertheless, there are still a few embarassing questions lurking. One has to do with the assumption that everyone in Guantanamo or Bagram, or wherever actually IS a terrorist.. Some certainly are and they should be dealt with accordingly, but there are many others who were guilty of nothing more than being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Many of those are in prison because a junior intelligence analyst decided on the basis of PROBABILITY that they PROBABLY were terrorists. In some cases repeated judgments by review boards have recommended release, but to no avail.

Then, there is the "ticking bomb," "24" fantasy. In the last five years many people have told me that in their opinion, "anything goes, anything goes" in the Jack Baueresque "crusade" for freedom. When told that, I make it a point to explain what "anything goes" means and what I have seen done to people by our enemies in the name of "anything goes." The "tough guys" among my interlocutors insist that the methods matter not. When asked if they would do it themselves, eyes are nearly always averted. So, basically, the "tough guys" are mostly imaginary "tough guys. The Democrats were mostly imaginary "tough guys" back in 2003.

The Democrats are now back in power everywhere in Washington except the Supreme Court and that will be taken care of shortly. If they can't live with the memory of their acquiescence in things like waterboarding, illegal wiretapping of Americans, and "anything goes" as a slogan, they should at least have the decency not to attack those who did their duty and who can not reply.

Who is really to blame here? The president stated when he released the CIA memos that started the whole affair that his hope was to address the issue without “political rancor.” Well—he failed. Indeed, many interpreted the release of the memos as a political act. It was a poor decision on the part of the president, one that started this whole mess—and now the congressional leadership is under siege because of the White House. At a time when Congress should be focused on some of the most pressing and vital issues of the day leaders are distracted by dealing with the blowback of a bad policy decision by the president. The problem in this case has a lot less to do with Congressional oversight of the intelligence community—and a lot more to do with illustrating what happens when people start playing politics with national security.

Congress prides itself with being a co-equal branch of the government to the executive branch. It has vast oversight powers over intelligence and military issues. All of those powers are magnified by the power of the purse. Thus, intelligence and military folks have a tendency to be "tight" with their authorizers, appropriators, and oversight staff and members. No one in the Executive branch with half a brain wants to surprise the Congress. A "no way" from the Congress is a show stopper for any sane Executive Branch official.

What is happening here is that the prevailing political winds have shifted and now a prominent member wants to rewrite reality. If the Speaker had "cowboyed up" and begged pressing circumstances, this would be all over. She tried to evasive and then to blame others. As I write, her story appears to be unravelling. Her last press conference gives new meaning to the term "dear in the headlights." The faux pas in question --- the evasion, not the approval of the techniques --- has done severe and perhap permanent damage to her Speakership. It is emblematic of serious problems when your own party begins to ask the Watergate question: What did the Speaker know, and when did she know it?

One good thing that comes from this problem is this: it makes a farce over the issue of prosecution of civil servants, intelligence operatives, and appointees of the previous administration. Who will we prosecute? The President has wisely absolved the CIA operatives. Now the issue is: what about prosecuting senior officials and their advisors. Are we really going to prosecute senior decision makers who were told that these techniques were legal? Are we going to prosecute their lawyers, whose only crime seems to be unpopular legal opinions [which by the way seemed justified at the time]? Perhaps, we could also include a docket for the hapless House and Senate staffers and members who did little more than cheer in the face of these briefings. To bad there is no H.R. McMaster to write about congressional dereliction of duty. It would be a multivolume study.

And that leaves us, comrades, with the "specter" of Truth Commissions. Sorry, they are not necessary. We already know the truth here, and it is an ugly one: there is enough guilt to go around in the affair of enhanced interrogations. Attentive public: here is the way to find the guilty! Just look in the mirror.

Well, here goes my career. First, my confession and testimonial.

I spent five years as CIA Senate Liaison in the 1990's, two years working as Intelligence Counsel to the Senate Majority Leaders Robert Dole and Trent Lott. And, while I am confessing my sins, was and have been a lobbyist on and off since I was a kid some 30 years ago. My father was a lobbyist also and among my childhood memories are of playing the halls of Russell Senate Office Building and sitting in the lap of US Senate Maureen Neuberger (R-OR) playing with her pearls.

Believe it or not, after all that experience, I still love the Hill. Its dynamism and its raw energy. As for the Executive Branch, after 16 years at CIA, I deeply respect the mission and people who do the often thankless work standing on the front lines against our enemies and trying to govern the nearly ungovernable.

The job of congressional liaison is a tricky one in the best of times. I used to say about the job you never won, might tie and usually lost. The Executive and Legislative Branches are not only separate branches of the American government -- they are separate worlds.

The Executive is huge and power is diffused over a large number of managers and is necessarily hierarchical. Yet, in times of Presidential action, can be quite narrowly focused in power and duty. The Legislative Branch is nodal in power -- if your member is on the top, as a staffer you are powerful. Otherwise, not so much. And, your member is whipped sawed back and forth between an endless series of meetings on multiple issues and with multiple campaign donors. Time is of the essence and you are scehduled to the fifteen minute schedule throughout the day.

I don't know what happened in the Pelosi case and can only speculate. But, I know the system well enough to say the liaison officer involved in the briefing likely took copious notes -- especially when leadership was involved. I also know the briefers where likely prepared to brief a controversial topic carefully. I sincerely doubt that the detail prepared is exactly what the Leader heard. Nor likely, did an equally stretched staff.

What was said by the briefers, what the leadership heard and what they remembered is likely along the lines of the Japnese movie "Rashomon." Same story, seen by four people, all with a different viewpoint. Legislators tend to be lawyers and hear material as evidence and hard fact. Executive branch people, especially intelligence officers, live in a different world of anecdote and blurry information that is constantly changing.

I am sorry to say, the likely conclusion is --in the immortal words of the prison guard in the movie "Cool Hand Luke," what we have here is a failure to communicate.

The National Journal phrased the question to allow Ms. Pelosi to avoid personal responsibility.

Congress plays an essential role as a surrogate for the American people in assessing the acceptability of certain sensitive activities that the executive branch conducts out of public view. The activities include not only covert action but also anything else, such as the interrogation techniques that have become the current focus of controversy, that could raise questions about consistency with American values and objectives. The need to maintain security precludes making these activities the subject of public debate from the beginning. So the American public elects representatives to Congress, who in turn choose leaders and members of select committees with the responsibility for performing the surrogate function. The principal (but not only) test they must apply is to ask whether the American people, if they could be made aware of the activity, would consider it moral and sensible. The system, however faultily it has operated in practice, is the only feasible way to maintain a check on potentially unconscionable secret activities by the executive branch, without revealing everything to foreign adversaries and thereby precluding much of the good one might hope to accomplish with some secret operations.

This type of oversight means carefully reviewing and assessing proposed activities before they occur, and perhaps at intervals while they are occurring. It means speaking clearly and forcefully to the executive branch about any reasons for concern or objection. And yes, it means the Congressional overseers, if they do not object to the activity, sharing responsibility for the activity going forward. It does not mean after-the-fact recriminations about activities that go sour, or that come to taste sour after the public’s mood has changed. That is a favorite Congressional activity, of course, but it is not oversight.

The most constructive way to learn lessons from the current brouhaha is to ask how the oversight process might be tweaked to help it work better. Perhaps the notification requirements need to be tightened to provide for briefing of full committees (in the case of intelligence activities, the intelligence committees) on a wider range of activities, with the exceptions made narrower and more specific than they are now. Briefing about something like the coercive interrogations should not have been limited only to the Gang of Four, a body not recognized in any statute.

The least constructive response to the current controversy would be to continue to wallow in what is already just another hopelessly partisan orgy of finger pointing. I say this as someone who is on record as opposed to coercive interrogations for being more counterproductive than useful, and who also believes that President Obama has taken the correct course in: (1) discontinuing the practice; (2) declassifying the memoranda that authorized it; and (3) trying to move the country beyond the wallowing and to focus it on tasks ahead.

Amid all the talk about investigations and truth commissions, I have yet to hear any explanation of just what such a public inquiry would accomplish. What would it be likely to uncover that has not already been uncovered? How would it point the country in a new direction beyond the redirection that already has occurred? It would not matter whether it is Congress itself or some other body such as an ad hoc commission that conducts such an inquiry. Partisanship and recriminations would still dominate the process. Either we would get partisan paralysis, or as with the 9/11 commission—which struggled to overcome its own partisan divisions—we would get another kind of politicized product that deflects blame onto a common scapegoat.

The bobbing and weaving of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week on “what she knew and when she knew it” was unseemly. Standing alone at her press conference she seemed trapped by the press into charging that CIA had misled her, lied to her. Her half hearted retractions and redirections of her attack toward the Bush administration over the weekend, have only reinforced the growing sense that Congress is so thoroughly compromised by its acquiescence on the Bush administration’s interrogation program that it cannot conduct a fair investigation of the accumulating wrongdoings of the last seven years. Members of both parties are in protective crouches. The debate on whether or not CIA lied to her, or misled her, is a side show, one that that will be overshadowed by the larger issues it will help gain traction. The Pelosi ruckus will probably end with a whimper, tilting more toward congressional leaders not paying attention rather than CIA misleading them.

But as theater, the Pelosi sideshow was fair for summer stock, even if it was not in the class of the did-too-did-not shootout between Senators Barry Goldwater and Daniel P. Moynihan on the one side and CIA Director Bill Casey and President Ronald Reagan on the other side exactly a quarter century ago. The issue then was CIA mining of Nicaraguan harbors. In the cosmic order of events it was a small time, tawdry affair, (never mind that the International Court of Justice ruled against the U.S. in the case filed against it by the Republic of Nicaragua in 1986).

The 1984 case, as in the Pelosi affair, involved whether or not CIA had properly notified the intelligence committees that Reagan had ordered the agency to mine Nicaraguan harbors. Moynihan, backed by Goldwater, went after Casey, claiming, as has Speaker Pelosi, that the committee had not been properly briefed. Utah Republican Senator Jake Garn launched a counterattack against Moynihan and Goldwater, steadfastly claiming that two sentences in the 84 pages of transcript of the Senate briefing (ten seconds out of two hours and eighteen minutes) were adequate notification of the intent to mine the harbors. Bob Woodward’s Veil, details DCI Bill Casey’s appearance before the full Senate Intelligence Committee, where, as the old CIA director came under scathing attack, Senator Garn came to his rescue, screaming out, “you’re all assholes -- the whole Congress is full of assholes, all five hundred thirty-five members are assholes.” Some calm was restored to the hearing by Daniel Moynihan, ever the patrician, who said, “smile when you call me an asshole.” Now that is good theater!

Republican Senator Kit Bond and Republican Congressman John Boehner have taken the lead in countering Speaker Pelosi’s claims of having been misled by CIA briefers, but their approach, though the correct one, seems a little lame when stacked against Jake Garn’s defense of Casey.

But if the Pelosi affair is light entertainment, the real issues are deadly serious. The first is that the Congress, almost in its entirety, was in the tank for the Bush administration as it began its buildup to war in Iraq in 2002, and, as is now alleged, as it began using any measures it or the CIA could conjure up to find the intelligence needed to support its casus belli with Saddam Hussein. Whether Congress was failing to pick up on briefings by the CIA on “enhanced interrogation” techniques, or failing to challenge WMD flimflammery on Iraq, the legislators either supported Bush with cowed silence or wildly cheered him on. They weren’t alone. The New York Times was in the tank with them, along with most of its columnists, and the Washington Post editorial page was Bush’s lead cheerleader. Only the Knight-Ridder newspapers raised the alarm, but who paid attention to them in those early post-9/11 months and years. In effect, Americans, as a nation, were in the tank.

And that is what the Pelosi drama is really about. Forget the political theater. Pelosi is the metaphor. She is us. This is a national examination. She is just kicking it off.

A second important issue is the nature of the CIA briefings of or notifications to the intelligence committees. Though Pelosi has wisely backed off her claims that CIA misled or lied to her, the fact that she set off on that tangent last week reveals grave flaws in the briefing and notification system itself. At issue are the so-called Gang of Four and Gang of Eight briefings. Vicki Divoll, a former deputy counsel to the C.I.A. Counterterrorist Center, laid out the legal problems with these limited briefings in her May 12, 2009, op-ed in the New York Times. She focused on the legality of the briefings, but the real questions go far beyond the legalities. Are the restricted briefings practical? The easy answer is they are not.

Since the establishment of the congressional intelligence committees in 1975, the practice of limiting the numbers of members to be briefed has grown; limited briefings are usually conducted because of “extraordinary circumstances affecting vital interests of the United States”. In some cases, the notification may be to the Gang of Four, the leaders of the two intelligence committees, or to the Gang of Eight, which includes the majority and minority leadership of the House and Senate, in addition to the four intelligence committee leaders. These briefings are for members only. No staffers, usually no records. Over time they have been used by successive administrations to shield programs from congressional oversight, not because of national security, but because of politics. It is not difficult to imagine how a carefully crafted CIA briefing at the direction of a hyper-involved president might be completely true, if not truly complete, but ultimately unsatisfactory for honest oversight. If Goldwater and Moynihan, two Senate giants, were enraged by ten seconds of substance buried in 138 minutes of briefing, think how a briefing in 2002, to just four members of the oversight committees might have played with carefully worded phrases such as “enhanced interrogation techniques”. The term itself had just made its debut in the English translation from the original German, verschaerfte Vernehmung. It must, indeed, have sailed right over the legislators’ heads, particularly without the usual bevy of staffers behind them taking and passing notes. It reminds me of when my favorite microbiologist, my eldest son, explained to me in detail how he conducted the protocol on bubonic plague infected mice, down to the last full measure of doing a cervical dislocation. “Cervical dislocation?”, I asked. “Yeah”, he said, “you break its neck.” Ouch!

If CIA Director, Leon Panetta was not referring to the Gang notifications, when he properly stood by his agency and suggested that Congress reach its own conclusions about its briefings, he should have been. It needs to be understood that Gang briefings are now discredited. CIA lore back in my days at Langley even had it that Gang briefings conducted in the afternoons, when the members might not even be able to remember the martini count at lunch, much less the substance of a carefully phrased notification, were just a little easier. Even if a little high on the apocryphal list, such a sentiment suggests a potential for abuse.

We are at the beginning of the long overdue national correction. The Pelosi affair is just a fillip for the grander examination of where we are and how we got here. That examination will be resisted, but it will not be stopped, not even by a popular president, who last week had the good sense to reverse himself on making public a second batch of photos showing abuse of prisoners at the hands of American troops. The president will also, ultimately, have the same good sense to let this national examination play out as it may, either with his attorney general shepherding it, or in the hands of a commission. But please, no “Truth Commissions”.

So back to the question of Congress’ compromise. The answer is yes, it is thoroughly, completely, irreversibly compromised on this issue. It cannot investigate itself. Others will have to do it, and ultimately, the president will realize that. Even a magician like Obama can’t unring this bell.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's attempts to re-groom her non-oversight of the intelligence community and torture in 2002 are as pathetic as the Republicans' pretense at outrage that any respectable Member of Congress would accuse the CIA of misleading Congress, let alone lying.

An executive branch agency misleading Congress? Why, how shocking. In fact, it's a long honored tradition, started not decades but centuries ago. That's why the Founding Fathers crafted the Constitution as they did - empowering Congress to perform effective oversight - a function that historian Arthur M. Schlesinger deemed at least as important as the power to legislate.

Quite clearly, Pelosi - like almost every currently sitting Member of Congress - has no clue of the supremely important role of oversight and not the slightest idea of how to perform it, if she cared to exercise it. Congress' oversight of the intelligence community has been and continues to be a null set. The most obvious indicator of that is the absence of transcripts of the briefings - if that is what you want to call them - given to Pelosi and others in 2002, which by the way would end the controversy and all the pretense in a heartbeat. That transcripts are still not made of these encounters tells us all we need to know about oversight enjoying any hint of revival in these matters.

The good news is that Pelosi's standing in Washington is now greatly diminished as she twists and squirms to escape the can of worms she jumped into, as eagerly as she was clueless. That gives President Obama a major opening: to pursue his entire legislative agenda without the toxic handiwork of a Speaker of the House who puts short sightedness, hyper-partisanship, and personal status above all else. Unless she makes an even bigger mess of it, Pelosi's seat as Speaker is probably secure, but now her high-handedness and narrow outlook are likely to be as diminished as her stature.

The latest contretemps between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the CIA over the disclosure of interrogation procedures reflects a much deeper problem: the weakness of Congressional oversight with regard to intelligence. There are many sources of this weakness, and unfortunately they reinforce one another.

On most issues Congress does less oversight than it has historically. It has become cliché to say that Congress has become more partisan, but it is useful to begin there. In terms of oversight, this has meant that Democratic members are reluctant to criticize a Democratic president, while Republicans are equally supportive of their own leaders. Members who see themselves as safeguards the Republic against executive branches abuses are fewer and fewer. Thus oversight tends to be cast in partisan terms, and it is much weaker when the same party controls both the legislative and executive branch.

Another problem is the incentive structure for oversight is off. Intelligence, like any serious issue, requires time and effort to understand the nuances. However, in contrast to defense, banking, and other committees there is little incentive for members to put in this time. There is far less money to be had from donors and special interests than if you are on armed services or finance. And because many of the hearings are secret, and the issues in general are less immediate for much of the public, members seeking a national profile will not focus on their work for this committee over their other duties. In addition, the deliberate decision to limit the number of years a member can serve on the committee – designed to prevent members from being “captured” by the intelligence community – has meant that many members are new to the issues each year.

With such a structure, a decent investigation into the interrogation issue is possible but is likely to be limited in what it accomplishes. Much depends on the leadership, both Republican and Democrat, of the committees. But it is likely that any conclusions on interrogation issues will be contested, probably according to party line. In such circumstances, the greatest role of the committees would be to get information out to the public and to help spark a broader debate on controversial issues – a debate that would not be pleasant, but is necessary to the functioning of our democracy.