GREAT SENSE OF PRIORITIES - AT 7:21 P.M. ET:  We refer readers to the story just below, reporting that Iran may well be within six months of an atomic bomb.  Now consider this, from the representatives of the people:

The House intelligence committee decided today to launch an investigation into allegations that the CIA broke the law by not informing Congress about a program launched in late 2001 to capture or assassinate al-Qaeda leadership.

"The committee must be kept fully and currently informed of significant intelligence activities as required by law," Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement.

The story notes:

For decades Congress and the CIA have battled over the 1947 law that formed the agency and what it requires in terms of congressional briefings. It included a provision mandating that the committees be kept "fully and currently informed" of intelligence issues. Even for covert actions, lawmakers on the committees generally must be notified.

But the law also says such briefings should be done "to the extent consistent with due regard for the protection from unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to sensitive intelligence sources and methods or other exceptionally sensitive matters."

COMMENT:  This is all about Democratic Party politics, especially appeasing the precincts of the dingy left, which thinks al-Qaeda represents just one more lifestyle choice.

And the centrifuges in Iran keep spinning.

July 17, 2009