Brennan Draws on Bond With Obama in Backing C.I.A.
But in the 67 years since the C.I.A. was founded, few presidents have had as close a bond with their intelligence chiefs as Mr. Obama has forged with Mr. Brennan. It is a relationship that has shaped the policy and politics of the debate over the nation’s war with terrorist organizations, as well as the agency’s own struggle to balance security and liberty. And the result is a president who denounces torture but not the people accused of inflicting it.
“The quandary that Brennan faces is similar to the quandary that Obama faces,” said David Cole, a national security scholar and law professor at Georgetown University. “Both are personally opposed to what went on and deeply troubled by what went on and agree that it should never happen again. And both are ultimately dependent on the C.I.A. for important national security services.”
.. “He was a pretty good analyst. He was a bright guy,” said Melvin A. Goodman, a former C.I.A. officer who is now a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a sharp critic of the agency. “But he always had a reputation of sucking up to power and moving in the direction of power and not being able to exercise any independence.”
.. “Somebody like the president, who doesn’t have that background, will end up gravitating to someone who does,” Mr. Daley said.
.. But neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Brennan was eager to take on the C.I.A. too often. “The C.I.A. gets what it needs,” Mr. Obama declared at one early meeting, according to people there. “He didn’t want them to feel like he was an enemy,” said a former aide.
Comment: We should be grateful for men like Mr. Brennan, because without them we may become slaves to who knows who. We are free men (and women) because of him. We need more like him (and Obama).