UPDATE TO "OUTRAGEOUS," JUST BELOW – AT 10:35 P.M. ET:  Well, the Republicans got results.  We reported at 7:33 p.m. about an outrageous attempt by leftist Dems in the House to insert a provision into a bill that would punish intelligence officers for a long list of infractions, many vaguely defined, and others already covered by law.  There's a new development:

A controversial bill that would have levied criminal punishments on intelligence officers for harsh interrogations was pulled Thursday evening.

House Republicans charged Democrats with trying to sneak a provision into the intelligence authorization bill that would establish criminal punishment for CIA agents and other intelligence officials who engage in “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” during interrogations.

Please define "degrading."  On American college campuses that could mean looking at a person of "another culture" the wrong way.

Democrats inserted an 11-page addition into the bill late Wednesday night as the House Rules Committee considered the legislation.

The provision, previously not vetted in committee, applied to “any officer or employee of the intelligence community” who during interrogations engages in beatings, infliction of pain or forced sexual acts. The bill said the acts covered by the provision would include inducing hypothermia, conducting mock executions or “depriving the [detainee] of necessary food, water, sleep, or medical care.”

This provision was clearly inserted to satisfy the hard left of the Democratic Party.

Republican Representative Pete Hoekstra of Michigan nailed it:

"Republicans brought this to the attention of the American people, who were rightly outraged that Democrats would try to target those we ask to serve in harm’s way and with a unified push we were successful in getting them to pull the bill," Hoekstra said in a statement. "The annual intelligence bill should be about protecting and defending our nation, not targeting those we ask to do that deed and giving greater protections to terrorists."

COMMENT:  That's good news.  Obviously, intelligence officers must observe the law and the orders from above.  But this provision was a gratuitous insult, and meant to be.  There are Democrats who simply are nostalgic for the 1960s.  Let them live with their nostalgia and leave us alone.

February 25, 2010