She says she wants a revolution

Maybe it's the language itself that's to blame. In American English, there are many words that mean the same thing, or almost the same thing. And sometimes, the different shades of meaning are regional, because the United States is a very big country with hundreds of millions of people speaking slightly different dialects. Perhaps that explains former Alaska governor Sarah Palin telling Saturday's national Tea Party Convention that "America is ready for another revolution," according to Cable News Network (CNN). Palin, who achieved national prominence in 2008 as the Republican Party nominee for vice president but who became the butt of irreverent jokes for her lack of command of domestic and foreign policy issues, told the conservative group that they were right to be concerned about the Obama administration's approach to the economy and national security. "The Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda will leave us less secure, more in debt and under the thumb of big government," she said, referring to the president and the top Democratic Party leaders in Congress. "We are drowning in national debt and many of us have had enough." Of course, Palin did not mention the astonishing increase in the national debt during the eight-year Bush administration, nor the financial crash that happened under its regulatory watch. Republicans rarely do, particularly on the national stage. But the voters certainly knew as they booted the party out of the White House and elected a large majority of Democratic Party legislators 16 months ago. On international affairs, Palin was critical of Obama's policies -- perhaps a sneak peak at the Republicans' 2012 campaign strategy. She, of course, denied that she was politicizing national security, even though that is exactly what she did. "It's not politicizing our security to discuss our concerns because Americans deserve to know the truths about the threats that we face." But her call for "another revolution" was truly amazing. Does the woman whose greatest claim to knowledge of world affairs was that she could see Russia across the water know what the original American Revolution was about? Does she know that colonists from Great Britain revolted to stop England from continuing what they saw as years of over-taxation and disrespect? Does she know that the Obama administration has been in office for 16 months and has continued nearly all of the policies of the previous, Republican, administration? Does she realize that the U.S. system has enabled her to rise to political prominence? Does she understand that after her preposterous campaign, she was able to get a book published under her name that will probably relieve her of the need to work again in her life? Does she know what revolution means?

What did we expect from the Bush administration?

Saturday's revelation that the CIA deliberately withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from the members of Congress who were supposed to oversee it certainly helps explain, at least in part, the initial reluctance of the new Obama administration to investigate the previous government's illegal activities. This is going to be big -- the Bush administration's excesses violated a lot of laws and principles, and put the future of the country at risk -- and a lot of former officials probably are going to end up in prison or have to fight furiously to stay out. No doubt, President Barack Obama did not want to be distracted from his sweeping domestic agenda at the start of his term. But Congress should have no such reluctance because its authority was compromised -- unless, of course, it is that such an investigation will reveal the failure of elected representatives to properly live up to their oversight responsibilities. Hopefully, the new Democratic Party majority in both houses of Congress will recognize the damage done to the government traditions under the U.S. Constitution and work to see that it never happens again. Assuming reports are true, and there are no indications so far that they are not, new CIA director Leon Panetta told the House and Senate intelligence committees that former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the agency not to reveal to Congress the existence of a still-secret counterterrorism program, according to the New York Times. Panetta said he ended the program when he took office. The issue of whether the Bush administration was candid with Congress has been roiling Capitol Hill since May, when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said she had not been told that the agency had waterboarded a terror suspect in 2002. The National Security Act of 1947 requires the president to ensure that the Congress intelligence committees are "kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States," the Times said. A CIA spokesman declined to comment on Cheney's purported role in the concealment from Congress. "It's not agency practice to discuss what may or not have been said in a classified briefing," the spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, told the Times. “When a C.I.A. unit brought this matter to Director Panetta’s attention, it was with the recommendation that it be shared appropriately with Congress. That was also his view, and he took swift, decisive action to put it into effect.” Intelligence and Congressional officials told the Times that the unidentified program did not involve interrogation or domestic intelligence activities, but was started following Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.