CONGRESS SHOULD ACT - AT 5:38 A.M. ET:  But won't.  The CIA has turned down a perfectly proper request from the former vice president.  Washington Post:

The CIA has rejected a request from former vice president Richard B. Cheney to release documents that he says show that the agency's harsh interrogation methods helped thwart terrorist plots.

A letter released by the CIA today cites pending legal action as the sole reason for keeping the documents under seal.

"For that reason -- and that reason only -- CIA did not accept Mr. Cheney's request for a mandatory declassification review," agency spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.

COMMENT:  There may be technical legal reasons why the CIA cannot release the documents, but it sure looks funny.  They were releasing a whole truckload full of memos just a few weeks ago.  Sherwood Forest was required just to provide the paper.

Congress can act on this, but of course it won't.  It could legislate the release, which would be the fair thing to do, and would thus inform the American people on the effectiveness, or lack of it, of the techniques defended by the Bush administration.  This refusal to release documents, combined with Nancy Pelosi's increasingly ludicrous explanations of what she knew and when she knew it, is not helping the image of the Democratic Party on national security issues.  The problem is, the people who run the party don't seem to care.

May 15, 2009