The Times today publishes a scathing editorial about John Brennan, who was confirmed by the Senate yesterday as director of the CIA. "At his Senate confirmation hearing in February, he appeared to be one of the few people (apart from maybe Dick Cheney and some other die-hard right-wingers) who thinks there is some doubt still about whether the Bush administration tortured prisoners, hid its actions from Congress and misled everyone about whether coerced testimony provided valuable intelligence," the Times editorial says.
You'd think maybe that the time for such an editorial would be before the Senate voted to confirm Mr. Brennan, not after. Maybe there was no room for it amid all the editorials calling for the confirmation of Chuck Hagel as defense secretary. It's almost as if the Times editorialists disapproved of Mr. Brennan, but not so much that they thought it was worth saying anything about it before the vote and thus risking having President Obama suffer the setback of having one of his nominees rejected by the Senate.