Tyler Cowen’s latest “Conversations with Tyler” is an interview of former CIA Director John Brennan. If you read the whole interview, you see that Tyler has done due diligence by reading background material on Brennan.
Unfortunately, Tyler doesn’t ask him a thing about Brennan’s lying to Congress about the fact that his CIA staff, at his behest, spied on Senator Feinstein and other employees of her Senate Intelligence Committee. Conor Friedersdorf lays it out in “A Brief History of the CIA’s Unpunished Spying on the Senate,” The Atlantic, December 23, 2014.
A key paragraph from Friedersdorf’s 2014 article:
CIA Director John Brennan denied the charge. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “We wouldn’t do that. That’s just beyond the scope of reason in terms of what we’d do.” It would be months before his denial was publicly proved false. “An internal investigation by the C.I.A. has found that its officers penetrated a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee in preparing its damning report on the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program,” The New York Times reported. “The report by the agency’s inspector general also found that C.I.A. officers read the emails of the Senate investigators and sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department based on false information.”
Tyler Cowen has written a lot about what he calls “state capacity libertarianism,” which he favors. In this post, he lists 11 propositions about state capacity libertarianism. None of the 11 seems to involve holding government officials accountable for mistakes and lies. But I would think that a state capacity libertarian would see that as important.
Apparently not, at least from its main proponent.
READER COMMENTS
Steve
Dec 16 2020 at 6:18pm
Maybe Tyler needs to bring back his disclaimer at the start of every episode, “Remember, this is the conversation I want to have with X, not the conversation you want me to have.”
David Henderson
Dec 16 2020 at 6:23pm
That would make sense.
It wouldn’t be consistent, though, with Tyler’s stated belief in state capacity libertarianism.
John C Goodman
Dec 16 2020 at 7:00pm
Brennan also lied about spying on Trump.
Alan Goldhammer
Dec 16 2020 at 7:24pm
The first rule of politics is that everyone lies. The fundamental question is how much and when. Are you all of the sudden surprised at this? Is this just another petty argument with Professor Cowen?
David Henderson
Dec 16 2020 at 8:03pm
No, I’m not surprised that he lied and I’m not surprised that Tyler didn’t address it. Tyler tends to do “puff piece” interviews.
You write:
When did you stop beating your wife?
Not only is it not another petty argument with Cowen because there hasn’t yet been a petty argument with Cowen, but also it’s not petty. For someone who advocates state capacity libertarianism, it’s appalling that he doesn’t walk the talk.
Alan Goldhammer
Dec 17 2020 at 8:19am
This is the debate you should have with him directly rather than indirectly. I listen to most of his ‘Conversations’ and he is pretty clear that these are talks that he wants to have with guests rather than talks you would like him to have with guests. I won’t be listening to the Brennan podcast as it is of no interest to me, not because Brennan may or may not be a liar. I also read most of your blog posts and sometimes am critical and voice those criticisms (I also am critical of some of Cowen’s blog posts as well).
You and Tyler have different platforms and my point about petty arguments being launched by the two of you that cross the Internet is a valid criticism. You may not like my comment but it would be far preferable to have the two of you discuss what is meant by state capacity libertarianism and whether it is good bad or indifferent. This would be a service to your readers.
RPLong
Dec 17 2020 at 9:56am
Maybe this is the conversation they want to have, not the conversation you would like them to have.
Steve
Dec 17 2020 at 12:37pm
Alright this made me laugh pretty hard. Well done
Jon Murphy
Dec 17 2020 at 10:39am
Indirect debate happens all the time. The whole purpose of blog posts, podcasts, and academic journals is indirect debate. People respond to each other all the time. Direct debate is costly. Indirect debate still fosters the exchange of ideas and is a service to readers.
Taylor Davidson
Dec 16 2020 at 7:31pm
Plausible that avoiding that topic was a precondition of the interview?
David Henderson
Dec 16 2020 at 8:05pm
Plausible but unlikely.
When I posted about Tyler’s earlier puff piece interview with Samantha Power, I asked him by email if she had put things off limits. He answered that she hadn’t.
Megen de la Mer
Dec 16 2020 at 8:52pm
Your assertion may be correct but seems to be based solely on the same assertion made by a journalist in an article, who as evidence, uses another article by another journalist claiming a report exists supporting that assertion.
Tom Jackson
Dec 16 2020 at 10:13pm
“Claiming a report exists.” A report by the Inspector General is a public document.
Megen de la Mer
Dec 17 2020 at 2:08am
Thanks for the info – so I went searching for this public document which has sections redacted and finds, inter alia, that there was no evidence that the D/CIA (i.e Brennan) ordered the penetration of the network, or was even aware of it happening at the time.
Yet, Henderson claims above that it occurred at Brennan’s behest. Hence he must have other evidence to support his assertion.
Tom Jackson
Dec 17 2020 at 11:47am
OK, maybe what happened with the spying on the Senate wasn’t Brennan’s idea (I can see where somebody might skip asking the boss), but doesn’t the buck stop with the director, and when he’s asked about it, shouldn’t he be truthful? I’m not trying to troll, I’m trying to pose what I hope is a reasonable question.
Peter Gerdes
Dec 16 2020 at 10:17pm
I think that’s pretty unfair. Not all interactions should aspire to the same thing and Cowen’s podcast doesn’t aspire to have the role of investigative journalist but that doesn’t mean he believes no one should.
For instance, if you felt that it was important that Neil deGrass Tyson was really pushed on the metoo accusations that wouldn’t make it a good idea to do on a science podcast that is hoping to explain some aspect/insight about astronomy or planet 9 to the audience. Such a podcast has a choice between getting a good interview which does the astronomy thing or antagonizing him and getting neither. Same here with Cowen.
Jon Murphy
Dec 17 2020 at 9:14am
True, but there is a way to ask tough and challenging questions without being an investigative journalist. Russ Roberts does it all the time. One needn’t be an investigative journalist to be critical.
Lord Canes
Dec 17 2020 at 3:22am
For:
Megen de la Mer
Dec 17 2020 at 2:08am
Thanks for the info – so I went searching for this public document which has sections redacted and finds, inter alia, that there was no evidence that the D/CIA (i.e Brennan) ordered the penetration of the network, or was even aware of it happening at the time.
Yet, Henderson claims above that it occurred at Brennan’s behest. Hence he must have other evidence to support his assertion.”
—30—
In some regards, this is even more unsettling. It again suggests the CIA is a “rogue agency.” Perhaps Tyler Cowen should have asked something along these lines, such as, “You were the Director of the CIA and did not know the CIA was spying on members of Congress—the very members who have oversight on the CIA?”
This sentence (from Atlantic article) sound a bit Russia-gatey: The CIA “sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department based on false information.”
Oh, how nice.
I guess John Brennan did not know about that either.
Even spookier, the people at the Atlantic, CNN, MSNBC, New Yorker, New York Times and WaPo seem to have gotten into bed with the CIA in the intervening years, with many former national security guys as their on-air or on-staff experts.
Tyler Cowen may wish to interview someone about this new media alliance with the national security establishment, or perhaps David Henderson will take a stab at it.
Vivian Darkbloom
Dec 17 2020 at 5:03am
Further evidence that John Brennan has a rather unique and expansive interpretation of what it means to tell the truth:
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2013-01-09/new-questions-over-cia-nominee-brennans-denial-of-civilian-drone-deaths
I suspect that John Brennan viewed Tyler Cowen a rather useful dupe in an attempt by the former to try to rehabilitate himself.
David Henderson
Dec 17 2020 at 11:54am
Responses to some of the above.
To Megen de la Mer:
I chose Conor Friedersdorf’s report for two reasons:
He is one of the most careful journalists out there.
He is friends with Tyler and so I figured Tyler would find him credible.
To others:
I think that interviewing John Brennan without raising this issue is at least 50% as bad as interviewing H.R. Haldeman and not raising the issue of the Watergate coverup.
Comments are closed.