We can't allow the CIA to hold the country hostage. We just can't. Too many horrors in the last eight years to let it go, and Panetta better make it clear to his employees. I do feel for the people who were caught in the middle of the White House and their jobs, but it doesn't excuse torture:

WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee is completing plans to begin a review of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program, another sign that lawmakers are determined to have a public accounting of controversial Bush administration programs despite White House concerns about the impact of unearthing the past.

The review, Congressional officials said, will focus in part on whether harsh interrogation procedures authorized by President George W. Bush actually succeeded in extracting important intelligence, as Mr. Bush and his advisers have asserted. The full scope of the inquiry is still being debated on the panel, but it is expected to address broader questions of whether the steps taken by the Central Intelligence Agency to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects were properly authorized.

The Obama administration has been cool to proposals by Democrats to investigate the previous administration, fearing that any protracted inquiry could alienate some within the C.I.A. and have a chilling effect on operations at the spy agency. On Wednesday, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, said he opposed a blanket investigation into the C.I.A. program, saying agency operatives had been carrying out orders and acting with approvals from the Justice Department.

Senior Democrats on Capitol Hill have given little evidence that they will heed White House concerns.

This clip from Tuesday's "Tucker" will get your blood boiling before he even finishes the setup. Tucker discusses the ACLU's recent lawsuit on behalf of three victims of the U.S. government's extraordinary rendition program with the Hill's A.B. Stoddard and L.A. Times columnist Rosa Brooks. The ever-whiny Carlson attempts to meld the ACLU with the Democrats and suggests that their lawsuit makes the left appear soft on terror, but Brooks shreds his talking points, one by one.  Tucker's ratings aren't as bad as Glenn Beck's, but it's still a mystery why MSNBC keeps him around.

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Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy: Open letter to Jeremy Lott and Mary Cheney’s bundle of joy. Meanwhile. at the Pundit Bar, George Packer, an Iraq expert who got everything wrong during the build-up to the war -- is back with his own very special brand of cluelessness...and we can't decide if this MSM hack is a liar, a moron, or both.

The Washington Note: More about the White House pressure on Flynt Leverett to bury his critical NYT op-ed.

Matthew Yglesias: No more Mr. Nice Indefinite Detention Without Trial in Gitmo.

the talking dog: Interview with Trevor Paglen, co-author (with A.C. Thompson) of "Torture Taxi: Onthe Trail of the CIA Rendition Flights", the first book to systematically investigate the CIA's extraordinary rendition program

Orcinus: Looks like Michelle Malkin is gonna be served a large plate of crow...

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: bending left...Consortiumblog... Rancho La Luna...Musings of a working mom