The big news today will be the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s interrogation policy during the Bush years, which has finally been made public. The mainstream media will see to it that the story dominates the headlines. It already dominates the Washington Post’s main page.

I expect we’ll have lots to say about the report, whose contents have been leaked over the past months. For now, I’ll link to some of what I have written in response to the leaks.

I argued here that the report should be viewed mainly as a political document. In this post, I viewed the report, in part, as the product of a clash between the FBI and the CIA.

In this post, John defended the CIA’s interrogation practices following the release in 2009 of a report (from 2004) by its Inspector General. Eric Holder used the report as a pretext for appointing a special counsel to look into the possibility of bringing criminal charges against CIA interrogators. To my knowledge, no charges were brought, but CIA personnel who helped protect America in a time of great danger had to lawyer-up again (the DOJ had already considered bringing charges once) and endure a politically motivated inquisition.

Now, they must endure a report from Dianne Feinstein and her follow Democrats that is more about excusing Feinstein and others from their sign-off on what the CIA did than about presenting the truth.

Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee declined to participate in Feinstein’s self-serving game. Next month, mercifully, the Republicans will take control of the Committee. They will have more pressing matters than re-litigating interrogation practices that occurred a decade ago and (unfortunately) are now off-the-table, at least officially.

I hope, however, that the Committee will find the time and the appropriate manner with which to present a fair account of the matters that Feinstein and her fellow Democrats appear so thoroughly to have distorted.

UPDATE: The Republicans on the committee have produced a minority report. Will the press report about it to any meaningful degree? I doubt it.

I’d like to see the report extended and reissued next term, when it would be the majority report.