Pelosi names anti war Texan to intelligence post

NY Times:

Representative Nancy Pelosi, the incoming House speaker, sent a strong new signal on Friday that Democrats intend to confront the White House by naming a Texas congressman who opposed the war in Iraq as the next chairman of the House intelligence committee.

This choice, of Representative Silvestre Reyes to head one of Congress’s most important committees, ended weeks of closed-door lobbying and public posturing among Democrats who had been competing for the post. By choosing Mr. Reyes, a former Border Patrol agent and Vietnam combat veteran, Mrs. Pelosi passed over the panel’s top Democrat, Representative Jane Harman of California, a more hawkish figure who voted to authorize the war in Iraq and a political rival with whom Mrs. Pelosi has long had a stormy relationship.

Mr. Reyes, an affable West Texan, has a far lower profile in national security circles than does Ms. Harman, an outspoken and strong-willed centrist who has become a regular guest on Sunday talk shows since the Sept. 11 attacks.

But Mrs. Pelosi chose him over Ms. Harman in part because he has repeatedly taken a more combative stance toward Bush administration policies like the invasion of Iraq, military tribunals for terrorist suspects, and the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program.

Mr. Reyes voted against authorizing President Bush to go to war with Iraq, and in June he said that the failures in Iraq “cry out for oversight.”

In September, Mr. Reyes blasted the White House’s justifications for the National Security Agency wiretapping program.

“I take very seriously our obligation to provide the president with the tools that he needs to provide for national security,” he said, “but I also reject the notion that the authorization for use of military force allows the president to ignore the Fourth Amendment and conduct warrantless surveillance on American citizens.”

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He is clearly not very smart, even if he is from Texas. Anyone who thinks you need a warrant to intercept enemy communications during a time of war is just totally ignorant of history and lacks common sense. To put someone like that in charge of an intelligence committee just demonstrates Pelosi's desire to lose the war. It is just another example of why Democrats should not be trusted with the national security of this country.