Brennan confirmed as CIA director - but not without drama
During his Senate confirmation hearing, Obama's pick for CIA director John Brennan defended the use of drone strikes against suspected terrorists. / Alex Wong
Updated: 4:24 p.m. ET
Following an epic, old-school,13-hour filibuster of John Brennan's confirmation to helm the CIA, the Senate nevertheless approved the nominee today by a vote of 63-34, with a number of Republicans breaking ranks to vote in his favor.
Three senators who caucus with Democrats -- Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. -- voted against Brennan's confirmation, and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., did not vote.
Brennan, who has long served as the president's top counterterrorism official, was widely expected to gain Senate approval for the job. But his nomination has come to stand as a proxy for the Obama administration's secretive and controversial targeted killing policy, and lawmakers on both the left and the right have spent weeks delaying his nomination in pursuit of more specific information about exactly who, where, and under what circumstances the administration deems itself authorized to use drones.
Of particular issue were the terms under which the U.S. might use lethal force against an American on U.S. soil, a possibility that Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed this week is plausible in cases of "extraordinary circumstance."
Yesterday, in a dramatic culmination of this debate, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., took to the Senate floor for a lengthy and notably non-silent filibuster, promising to "speak until I can no longer speak" in order to get the answers he demanded.
"I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan's nomination for the CIA. I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court," he said.
Ultimately, Paul stepped down to go to the bathroom -- he quipped in an interview with Glenn Beck this morning that he had considered using a catheter -- but he made his point. This afternoon, Attorney General Eric Holder answered Paul's question in a brief, almost palpably snarky letter.
"It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: 'Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?'" Holder wrote. "The answer to that question is no."
Upon receiving an answer to his question Paul, who had pledged to hold up Brennan's confirmation vote until he heard from the White House, agreed to let the vote proceed.
"Yesterday I spent a considerable time -- amount of time on the floor talking about the idea of whether or not Americans are protected by the Fifth Amendment always, whether or not you can be targeted for drone strikes in America without your due process rights," Paul said, in remarks on the Senate floor after receiving the letter. "It has taken awhile but we got an explicit answer. I'm pleased that we did, and to me, I think the entire battle was worthwhile."
In the final vote on Brennan's confirmation, Paul, unsurprisingly, voted no. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a Democratic "no" vote, has cited his own "waning patience" with the administration's slow responses to questions about its drone policy.
President Obama applauded Brennan's confirmation in a statement following the vote, to which he pointed as evidence that "the Senate has recognized in John the qualities I value so much--his determination to keep America safe, his commitment to working with Congress, his ability to build relationship
"Timely, accurate intelligence is absolutely critical to disrupting terrorist attacks, dismantling al Qaeda and its affiliates, and meeting the broad array of security challenges that we face as a nation. John's leadership, and our dedicated intelligence professionals, will be essential in these efforts," Mr. Obama said. "I am deeply grateful to John and his family for their continued service to our nation."
s with foreign partners, and his fidelity to the values that define us as a nation."
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Wouldn't a real libertarian question the governments right to kill anybody?
Sure, and a good reason why libertarians are against the WAR machine, since it creates collateral damage as well, which can be used as a recruitment tool for al Qaeda like no other.
Interestingly enough, it dealt with just this same problem of drone strikes, but with collateral damage being used as a recruitment tool for al Qaeda.
A doctor was helping victims after a drone strike in Afghanistan, and he was killed by yet a second drone strike. His daughter became an al Qaeda operative, travelling to NYC in order to kill Americans since that's where the drones came from.
No different than Iraq, where our killing of innocent Iraqis led to others from their families, that joined the jihad against American soldiers.
Why police or whoever needs to kill first, we have the tech today, so how much respect and honor for life do we have ?
Besides, the leadership in capitol motivates those in uniform to how and when.
We lack not power but good thinking, and if they lack thinking we should not vote for them.
Terror is not done away by terror, but by rooting the cause of the problem.
Dont tell me there is no cause in madness, dont tell me there is no time to treat a disease, dont tell me we can not love our enemies.
Only if we try then we will have additional power to invent new ways to make out of terror a system of understanding.
So if we have not found a treatment by now, we are very stupid, maybe as stupid as they are.
Guns, drones, bombs are the equation of our shortsightness, we need them enough to tell us we are very stupid, we could not help it.
This message goes back to our children, and then again we wonder why they are so violent recently.
The next war is coming, after that we know how stupid this was, again.
Why, cos we get used to stupid, how stupid.
Act.
This is what scared the hell out of McCain and Graham....it's where the protest leads.
1: For our install a new dictator plan.
2: For our drug smuggling ring.
3: For satanic child sex slavery operations.
4: If you're a elected official who needs to hide a dead hooker fast!
5: If you wanna hear the joke that is the 9/11 cover-up by us. (jet fuel 666)
But, if this is Mr. Rothschild or satan himself or the anti christ, we will take your call immediately stay on the line please!
Scott: REV 18
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How does it feel to support a president who hates his country?
Gonna shut down airport control towers and furlough border guards now. Obama needs to be impeached before he does any real, permanent damage.
Your emotional reaction to his behavior as our president is very understandable. Any one who would deny it's obvious heart felt conclusion as anything less than worry for our country is naive. Many are more than a bit to committed to the corrupt philosophy of the progressive left to have the sight needed to understand what is truly good or bad to America.
You are so obviously blinded by your partisanship and your hatred that you refuse to see something that is good for ALL Americans.
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Your second statement is deflective hogwash. Allow me to take a page from your liberal tactic playbook: Bush inherited Clinton's Office including the utterly bled out Dept of Defense.
Come at me bro.