In nominating John Brennan to head the CIA, President Obama has made it more urgent that the report be declassified. It is one of several sources that could help us to answer an important question: Are the American people being asked to entrust our clandestine spy agency and its killing and interrogation apparatuses to a man who was complicit in illegal torture?

There is strong circumstantial evidence that the answer is yes. At minimum, Brennan favored rendition and what he called "enhanced interrogation tactics" other than waterboarding. As Andrew Sullivan put it in 2008, when Obama first considered Brennan as CIA chief, "if Obama picks him, it will be a vindication of the kind of ambivalence and institutional moral cowardice that made America a torturing nation. It would be an unforgivable betrayal of his supporters and his ideals."

These days, Sullivan is uninclined to oppose Brennan because "people change," though Sullivan neither possesses nor presents any evidence that Brennan has changed*. Sullivan adds that the Brennan confirmation hearings could be useful. "We have an unusual opportunity to grill a nominee over the vital issues of torture and accountability, drones and secrecy," he argues. "We need more sunlight -- including public access to the Senate Intelligence Committee's definitive report on the torture program under Bush-Cheney. But the Brennan hearings are a start."

So will Sullivan pledge to oppose Brennan's nomination until we fill the significant gaps in information about his role in torture and his prosecution of Obama's secretive, unaccountable drone war? Or will Sullivan support Obama's choice, even if the confirmation hearings don't result in what he agrees is important information being made public? I suspect he'll back Obama's choice regardless, as he's already begun to do. The fact that so many Obama supporters will behave that way is part of the reason transparency advocates are unlikely to get answers.

Whereas the American people might get the information that Sullivan himself says is vital if more Obama supporters showed some spine and took the position staked out by the folks at the ACLU:



The Senate should not move forward with his nomination until all senators can assess the role of the CIA -- and any role by Brennan himself -- in torture, abuse, secret prisons, and extraordinary rendition during his past tenure at the CIA, as well as can review the legal authorities for the targeted killing program that he has overseen in his current position. This nomination is too important to proceed without the Senate first knowing what happened during Brennan's tenures at the CIA and the White House, and whether all of his conduct was within the law.



The Senate should not move forward with the nomination of John Brennan until it is clear that he is committed to making sure that the CIA will end its targeted killing program, and agree to work with the Senate Intelligence Committee on the declassification review and disclosure of the committee's report on the CIA's past role in torture and abuse.



See the difference?