** Major Update Below **

In a clearly one sided piece today the Washington Post runs an article by Charles Babington that decries the tensions in the Senate Intelligence Committee and blames – republicans! How pathetic.

Inter-party animosity has simmered since the 1990s, but it heated up when Republicans took steps to limit probes into President Bush’s handling of the Iraq war and domestic spying. It reached a full boil Tuesday, when the committee voted along party lines to reject a proposed investigation of the administration’s warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international communications. It voted instead to create a White House-approved subcommittee to oversee the operation, infuriating Democrats and some civil libertarians.

In other words it heated up when the Democrats didn’t get their way. Per a well publicized plan of the Democrats, this was to be expected. Too bad Babington is such a poor journalist he seems to be the only one on the planet who has not bought a clue to Rockefeller’s plan to take down Bush through witch-hunt investigations (more on the plan below).

B) Once we identify solid leads the majority does not want to pursue, we would attract more coverage and have greater credibility in that context than one in which we simply launch an independent investigation based on principled but vague notions regarding the use of intelligence.

Unless of course Babington is a willing participant in ‘the plan’, then I guess that removes him from the ‘poor journalist’ category and puts him in the ‘corrupt journalist’ category. Tough choice. Back to Babbington’s one sided screed:

Their anger has focused mainly on the committee’s chairman, Republican Pat Roberts of Kansas

Well, yes if you are a Democrat and a frustrated liberal ‘journalist’ your world view is shrunk down to this scope. But this part caught my eye because we all know Rockefeller, Durbin and Wyden are under investigation for leaking intelligence information to the media:

Rockefeller declined to be interviewed for this story but said in a statement that “this condition of partisanship cannot stand. . . . People must learn to deal with each other out of concern for national security and our responsibilities on the committee. We cannot continue like this.”

Sounds like a desperate plea to ‘just get along’ to me! Was Babington one of the media recipients of intel leaks? Well the Washington Post was. Everyone knows about the CIA prison stories, but Babington gets a quote from former Senator Bob Graham…

Former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), a committee member for 10 years and a onetime chairman, said the partisan quarreling “is a very serious matter, and I hope that the members will find out a way to work through these current institutional differences and partisan divides.”

…who also leaked details of the NSA story to the Wasington Post before:

One thing the NSA wanted was access to the growing fraction of global telecommunications that passed through junctions on U.S. territory. According to former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who chaired the Intelligence Committee at the time, briefers told him in Cheney’s office in October 2002 that Bush had authorized the agency to tap into those junctions. That decision, Graham said in an interview first reported in The Washington Post on Dec. 18, allowed the NSA to intercept “conversations that . . . went through a transit facility inside the United States.”

This is a clear and unambiguous exposure of classified details of the NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program. Graham is the only Senator on record disclosing actual details of the program to the media. And Babington has a quote from him hoping things will settle down?

Babington’s rant continues by highlighting all the unfair conservative acts that led Democrats to have to turn to such anger and animosity as to expose national secrets and tip off our enemies. Basically the Reps denied a Clinton CIA nominee and the Iraq war were the sources of the Democrats loss of self control. As I said, it is a pathetic propaganda piece. This is all Babington has to say about Rockefeller’s notorious memo from 2003:

In an interview last week, Roberts cited the 2003 leaked memo and the Senate shutdown as evidence that Democrats are at least as culpable as Republicans for the partisan bickering. Democrats, meanwhile, note that the committee still has not completed the inquiry’s long-promised second phase.

Got that? It was just some memo leaked. Is it clear to all that Babington is covering up for the Democrats? This is such a poor snow job that it reaks of desperation. Also note this final entry:

Research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.

And do a search to find Ms. Shackelford is behind a lot of leftwing stories against Bush. The Washington Post should be ashamed to pass this partisan garbage off as news.

Update: Isn’t odd that the NY Times is running an identical piece the same day?

It is the same tone that has left the committee deadlocked over the last 18 months over how to address a host of incendiary issues, including how the Bush administration used prewar intelligence on Iraq and the rules for detention and interrogation of terror suspects.

Notice the partisan issues not being resolved for the partisan media? So the plan continues and the collusion between the liberal media and the Democrat Party continues. The NY Times has another interesting tidbit, which people will realize is a veiled shift in blame from Senators leaking to staffers leaking – since staffers are the ones right now cooperating with investigators:

The breakdown, which some attribute to senators’ personalities and some to staff members’ taste for political combat, is a development that past committee chairmen of both parties call deeply disturbing.

Emphasis mine. Hmmm. Think that will warn staffers to be quiet, or get their cover from the prosecutors now? And there is another interesting Rockie quote Babington left out of his WaPo piece (for good reason it seems):

Mr. Rockefeller said in a statement that he often felt his choice was either “roll over and let the administration dictate the activities of this committee” or fight.

Well, prosecutors are not going to give Rockie a breal because he was emotionally unable to deal with being in the minority and not getting his way. Rockie and the other Democrat Senators do not fall under the categoy of Whistleblowers – they have plenty of power and independence to make their case. They just need to learn there is not right to get their way all the time. Listen to this ridiculous rationalization:

“Whether it was the Iraq war, detention of prisoners or the N.S.A. program, the White House appeared to play a significant role in deciding what the committee would and would not do,” he said, saying that this was undermining the committee’s oversight function.

In other words, Senate Reps agreed with their Reps President! Shocking.