The bad terrorist men are coming to get you! Oooga booga booga! Isn't it funny how Republicans have continually intoned they are the only ones able to keep us safe from the scary men, but when the Obama administration actually decides to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five others for their terrorists acts, they turn--to a one--into the biggest WATBs at the thought of these Guantanamo detainees in a super-max prison standing trial through the American court systems. For all their jingoistic "We're #1" exceptionalism, these Republicans have remarkably little faith in our criminal justice system. And who better to represent these little p*ssified pseudo-toughs than Rudy "A Noun, A Verb and 911" Giuliani? He scored a trifecta of appearances, besting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who only will be on two shows. Meanwhile, the Republicans aren't done scaring Americans about health care reform, and you can bet the Pete Hoekstra on Face the Nation, Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press and Mitch McConnell on Fox News Sunday will be amping up the rhetoric.

ABC's "This Week" - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich.; Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Clinton; Education Secretary Arne Duncan; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.; the Rev. Al Sharpton.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Eugene Robinson, Katty Kay, Peggy Noonan, Michael Duffy. Topics: Will Obama Suffer Longterm Damage For Afghanistan and Health Care Delays? Will Sarah Palin's Book Tour Convert Her From Republican Rogue to Frontrunner? Meter Questions: Will President Obama Sign a Health Care Reform Bill This Year? YES: 5
NO: 7; Will Delays Over Afghanistan and Health Care Hurt Obama's Image Longterm? YES: 5 No: 7.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Giuliani; White House senior adviser David Axelrod; Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H.; Gov. Brian Schweitzer, D-Mont.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Fareed gives you a sneak peak into the HBO film he narrated entitled Terror in Mumbai. Plus, an incisive panel discussion on President Obama's first trip to China and the most important relationship in the world - between Beijing and Washington.

CNN's "Amanpour" - Amira Hass, Ha'aretz "Occupied Lands" correspondent, and Aaron David Miller, former diplomat who served six U.S. Secretaries of State discuss peace prospects in the Middle East.

"Fox News Sunday" - Giuliani; Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

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Rachel runs down the list of intelligence leaks by Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the man who the Republicans feel is the best choice to be the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. This was a follow up from last night where Maddow focused on the leaking of Maj. Nidal M. Hasan's email conversations with cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi.

As Think Progress noted, Marcy Wheeler also reminded us today of some of Hoekstra's finer moments.

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Congressman Pete Hoekstra on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports talking about our options with Iran now that the Obama administration has called them our for their underground nuclear facilities.

From The Hill--Obama should not have agreed to talks with Iran, Rep. Hoekstra says:

"I think the interesting thing here was the decision that the Obama administration made, perhaps weeks or months ago, that they wanted to enter into these talks with Iran, probably being fully aware that this secret facility existed, and they were willing to move forward unconditionally," said Hoekstra, the ranking member on the House's Permanent Select Intelligence Committee.

"Now ... they're locked in; they have to go on Thursday, so let's see what comes out of that," Hoekstra added.

[....]

"I think that if you put tough economic sanctions on Iran, what a regime like this will do ... is they will make sure it is the Iranian people that will be hurting," he said. "That will then give them the opportunity to go on international television and ... [show the United States] is hurting the Iranian people, and is really not stopping or changing their strategic direction."

But, Hoekstra added, "I'm not sure there are any good options at this point in time."

I wonder how long it will take the neocons to start attacking Pete Hoekstra for saying this?

Stunning. Millions of Iranaian citizens are staging protests of historical proportion and Republican Pete Hoekstra compares it to being taken to the woodshed by Democrats. Zero shame. The best part of Pete's Tweet? The comments.

Ice Station Tango nails it:

I remember that day. It was a god damned massacre. The Democrats surrounded the Republicans and deliberately fired into the peaceful crowd, killing seven...

Wait, that was Iran.

Hoekstra wasn't the only wingnut making the Iran protest/GOP comparison. These people obviously have no idea how ridiculous they look. (h/t HuffPo)

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Countdown's Worst Persons for June 17, 2009 with winner Fox News. Runners up Representatives Dreier, Hoekstra and Culberson and Newt Gingrich.

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Countdown's Worst Persons for June 8, 2009 with winner Pete Hoekstra. Runners up Tim Pawlenty and Pastor Ken Pagano.

That House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has badly bungled the imbroglio over what she knew and when about the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture is hard to dispute. Seemingly snatching PR defeat from the jaws of victory, Pelosi should have instead simply called the Republicans' bluff and insisted on investigations of torture architects, perpetrators and "accomplices" alike, letting the bipartisan chips fall where they may. But by savaging Pelosi for her statement that the CIA "misled" Congress, Bush's Republican water carriers are again exhibiting selective amnesia. After all, just two years ago it was the same raging right which insisted the CIA was an "anti-Bush cabal" behind a "bureaucratic coup d’état" seeking to "undermine" the President.

To be sure, the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame in retaliation for her husband's revelations regarding President Bush's bogus claims that Iraq sought uranium in Niger prompted right-wing calls of betrayal by the agency. In March 2007, California Republican Darrell Issa accused Plame of perjury, insisting "She has not been genuine in her testimony before Congress." For his part, former Fox News host John Gibson argued that ending the classified career of CIA agent deeply involved in critical nuclear proliferation work and compromising her global network was essential because "this was about an anti-Bush cabal at the CIA" that needed to be "rooted out."

"I'm the guy who said a long, long time ago that whoever outed Valerie Plame should get a medal. And if it was Karl Rove, I'd pin it on him myself."

But it was the release of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Iranian nuclear program which produced the conservative outcry over CIA lies, treason and worse.

Among Speaker Pelosi's interlocutors now is former Intelligence Committee chairman, Republican Pete Hoekstra (R-MI). But as ThinkProgress detailed, years before he claimed Pelosi was "blaming the CIA," Hoekstra blasted "an intelligence community that covers up what it does and then lies to Congress." And when it came to the 2007 NIE which asserted Tehran halted its nuclear program in 2003, Hoekstra insisted the agency was holding back:

Similarly, in 2007, Hoekstra described a closed-door briefing by representatives from the intelligence community (including CIA) on the National Intelligence Estimate of Iran's nuclear capability, saying that the members "didn't find [the briefers] forthcoming."

For his part, Newt Gingrich, who claimed that Nancy Pelosi had "disqualified herself" from the same Speaker's position he once held, took to the op-ed pages to make his case for her to "step down" and to the airwaves to defend Hoekstra. But while Gingrich today redefined what the meaning of "is" is by claiming Hoekstra "did not say the CIA routinely lies," back in December 2007 he accused the CIA of precisely that over the Iran NIE:

"[The NIE] is so professionally unworthy, so intellectually indefensible and so fundamentally misleading that it is damaging to our national security.

[The NIE appears to be a deliberate attempt to undermine the policies of President Bush by members of his own government by suggesting that Iran no longer poses a serious threat to U.S. national security because we apparently have credible reports that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003."

At the CPAC conference in February 2008, Ginggrich ratched up the inflammatory rhetoric. The Benedict Arnolds in the American intelligence community, he insisted to applause from the assembled, had essentially committed treason:

"The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran can only be understood as a bureaucratic coup d’état, deliberately designed to undermine the policies of the United States, on behalf of some weird goal." (Applause)

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On The Situation Room John Boehner again calls for Nancy Pelosi to apologize for her statement that the CIA lied to her and that she should "come forward with documents" that support her. When confronted with the fact that Nancy Pelosi has no authority to declassify those documents Boehner admits that she does not but thinks the documents will not support her.

If John Boehner hasn't seen those documents either, how would he know if they would support her or not? Boehner is then asked about Pete Hoekstra's similar claims that the CIA also lied to him.

Blitzer: Last year the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, he said this in response to a case that he was watching very closely, an American citizen who was killed in a plane crash, the cover up he alleged involving the CIA, he said these words--"We cannot have an intelligence community that covers up what it does and then lies to Congress". That's what Pete Hoekstra said in 2008.

Boehner: Pete Hoekstra did say that. And the Inspector General at the CIA did an investigation and it became clear that some CIA operatives did in fact cover this up. This is not, we’re talking about two different issues here. All the facts in this case are on the table and the truth is now known to all of... to everyone.

BLITZER: So, based on what you know on that case involving Hoekstra, the case he was interested in, do you agree that the CIA then lied to Congress?

Boehner: I know as much about this case as Pete Hoekstra does and the Inspector General did in fact do an investigation, produced a report and frankly supported, I think, Pete’s claims. And all we're trying to do here in both cases is to get to the bottom, get to the truth, and the truth is what we want here. And the fact is that CIA Director Panetta issued a very strong letter to Speaker Pelosi making it clear that in his opinion they did not mislead her or lie to her. And so I either want to see the documents or I'd like to see the Speaker apologize.

So...Republicans saying the CIA lied to them...no problem. Nancy Pelosi...not so much. John Boehner tried to say that his questioning of the NIE on Iran was not the same as Nancy Pelosi saying the CIA lied. Now he asserts that Pete Hoekstra saying the CIA lied to him is not the same as Nancy Pelosi saying the CIA lied to her. The hypocrisy here is stunning.

As our own Jon Perr noted:

That House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has badly bungled the imbroglio over what she knew and when about the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture is hard to dispute. Seemingly snatching PR defeat from the jaws of victory, Pelosi should have instead simply called the Republicans' bluff and insisted on investigations of torture architects, perpetrators and "accomplices" alike, letting the bipartisan chips fall where they may. But by savaging Pelosi for her statement that the CIA "misled" Congress, Bush's Republican water carriers are again exhibiting selective amnesia. After all, just two years ago it was the same raging right which insisted the CIA was an "anti-Bush cabal" seeking to "undermine" the President.

You can read the rest of his post here: GOP in 2007: CIA "Misleading" and an "Anti-Bush Cabal".

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Former CIA agent Jack Rice weighs in on whether we can trust the CIA and on the politics being played over the release of CIA torture briefings. Marcy Wheeler got a well deserved kudos from Keith for her work at Firedoglake on the subject.

Olbermann: On the torture briefings themselves, Hoekstra who has joined the chorus of anti-Pelosi outrage, Hoekstra himself says the CIA memo alleging that Pelosi was told about torture is wrong. "Our records suggest there may have been a few additional briefings" he wrote to the CIA in a letter released yesterday. And that's not even the only new question about the memo. Congressman David Obey revealed that the memo revealed that the memo names an appropriations committee aide as present at one briefing when the aide recalls being told he was not cleared to stay there.

This means he joins Democrats Jay Rockefeller and Bob Graham who have also questioned the memos accuracy in terms of dates and time.

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May 17, 2009 News Corp. Congressman Pete Hoekstra on what Nancy Pelosi was told by the CIA.

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From C-SPAN May 7, 2009. The GOP is pulling out its latest fear card with the "Keep the Terrorists Out of America Act". When asked by a reporter about the 425,000 Axis POW's America detained after WWII, Pete Hoekstra replies with this:

Hoekstra: It's night and day.... Because in WWII I don't think we expected the, you know, you didn't have the threat from home grown terrorism. You didn't have...remember these folks successfully attacked us on 9-11, 3000 Americans died. And the threat and the specter of the threat that we face today from radical Jihadists is very, very different than the threat that we faced from Germany or Japan in WWII. Putting these people in the middle of our communities puts those communities at risk and puts the people that work at those facilities at risk because they can be very, very easily identified. It is a total different threat assessment when you are in Gitmo vs when you are in a community in our homeland.

d-day has a lot more on this latest fiasco over at Hullabaloo.

Then they followed through with the main event, a bill literally called “The Keep Terrorists Out Of America Act,” which would prohibit the transfer of any "Terrorist" from Guantanamo Bay into a prison facility in the United States, without approval from the state's Governor and legislature, and some other legislative hoop-jumping.

Taken to its extreme, Republicans would call for the immediate closure of all prisons ("criminals... in your community!"), and the dispatching of all 2.3 million prisoners to some offsite floating barge, Australia, or that island of plastic in the Pacific. To suggest that a maximum-security prison could not possibly hold a Dangerous Terrorist is an insult to the men and woman of the federal corrections system, who already hold convicted terrorists in custody who received justice through a court of law, and basically acknowledges that those facilities are completely insecure, and should be feared by local residents.

I'm sure the RNC and the Republican members of the House will pick up the costs of moving every single prisoner over to that plastic island. Because think of the children.

The Plum Line has a summary of the "Keep Terrorists Out of America Act". Be afraid, America. Be very afraid. It's all they have left.