An easily overlooked story over the weekend:

Over the Memorial Day recess, [former deputy director at both the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis and the National Counterterrorism Center Philip] Mudd met with senior staff members of the Homeland Security panel whose interest was primarily how he would handle issues of intelligence sharing with state and local police units. When, near the end of a two-hour session, they went over Mudd’s CIA positions from 2001 to 2005, it became apparent that questions about harsh interrogations, renditions and allegations that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had links to al-Qaeda would have to be explored, according to a person at the session who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
“If the White House, Justice and the senior leadership on the seventh floor at Langley is formulating this policy, a guy supposed to implement counterterrorism policy is now held accountable for those policies? That’s foolish,” said Roger W. Cressey, a counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations who worked with Mudd on the National Security Council. “You’re absolutely undercutting the ability of the government to do its job when people like him get caught in this undertow. This guy is an apolitical career civil servant, a true subject-matter expert.”

Mudd was good enough for the CIA, the FBI, and President Obama. He wasn’t good enough for Homeland Security Committee Democrats.

Remember this if you hear about Republican obstructionism. President Obama doesn’t have the staff he wants handling terrorism issues because of Democrats, not Republicans.