Questions for John Brennan

President Obama with John Brennan discussing the Newtown shootings. In a few minutes, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will begin its confirmation hearings on John Brennan, the White House's counterterrorism adviser, who has been nominated to be the next chief of the Central Intelligence Agency. You can watch here. We can once again expect more questions on Benghazi even though you would think Republicans would be a bit cautious in that sphere after Hillary Clinton handed them their asses in her recent testimony on that.

Given the furor over the Obama administration's policy of targeted killings by drone aircraft, fired up this week by the leaking of a secret 16-page white-paper memo summarizing legal arguments justifying those killings, there may be some tough questions on that subject for Brennan. But SSCI has hardly been critical of the administration's drone policy. And, on those few occasions when it occurs, discussing covert policy in public is always complicated by the fact that senators must avoid revealing what they actually know from the classified information they have received and are hampered by the fact that they haven't seen a lot of classified information that would make their questions more to the point.

All this makes these affairs somewhat unsatisfactory from the get-go. Since Brennan almost certainly will be approved for the post, the questioning might be considered not all that useful anyway.

There was some progress this week. After years of refusing to confirm or deny to inquiring senators that it had documents relating to legal justification for its targeted killings, the Obama administration on Wednesday night told Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat, that it would now release such documents to members of two congressional committees. Whether this move will soften the questions that might have been asked today is anybody's guess.

Marcy Wheeler, who has diligently followed intelligence matters for years, has five questions she thinks ought to be asked. She's not a senator, which is a pity, so she doesn't have to be diplomatic. Head below the fold to see those five questions.