WHO IS DENNIS C. BLAIR?

The wily Tim Fernholz draws our attention to this particular part of Obama's speech, in which he introduces his nominee for attorney general:

[Eric Holder] also has the combination of toughness and independence that we need at the Justice Department. Let me be clear: the Attorney General serves the American people. And I have every expectation that Eric will protect our people, uphold the public trust, and adhere to our Constitution.

Combined with Obama's assurance that his administration sees "the power of our moral example," as an important tool for pursuing American interests, Obama would seem to be implying that previous executive overreaches -- such as torture -- will not be acceptable under his administration. The problem is that the constitutionality of the warrantless wiretap program Obama enabled is already questionable, so there's reason to be skeptical of what Obama actually means when he says Holder will "adhere to our Constitution." We're at an awkward moment when superficial gestures are no longer adequate assurances that Obama will keep some of his campaign promises, even as it remains too early for Obama to implement those promises. As it stands, we'll just have to wait and see what he does.

Still, that's no reason to avoid scrutinizing Obama's appointments. And while Holder and NSA nominee James Jones are reassuring on the issue of torture, Dennis C. Blair as a potential Director of National Intelligence is less so, if only because he doesn't appear to be on the record with regard to torture. The Wall Street Journal reports that Blair is "free of any association" with torture, but that doesn't mean we know where he stands. John Brennan was unacceptable to many because of his previous statements made in support of enhanced interrogations, and opposition to him coalesced around those statements. But we don't know that much about Blair's views on the subject, which is a little disconcerting given that the previous potential nominee had been identified as a torture apologist. 

At first glance, it seems obvious why Obama might find Blair an appealing choice for DNI. As Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, he gained a great deal of experience dealing with terrorism in the Pacific as well as navigating political conflicts between China and Taiwan and facilitating cooperation among the many nations of the region. He's spoken out about the socio-economic causes of terrorism. In 2002, discussing terrorism in the Philippines, Blair agreed with then-Pesident Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that defeating the terrorists there required "a war on terrorism and a war on poverty." A pretty flattering 2000 profile in the Honolulu Advertiser described Blair as someone who is "intellectual" and "goes out of his way to seek opinions on international issues". All of which suggests he lines up nicely with Obama on "the vision thing."

However, in 2006 R. Jeffrey Smith and Renae Merle reported for The Washington Post that Blair, in his capacity as president of the Institute for Defense Analyses, endorsed a contract to produce F-22 fighter planes for a firm where he served member of the board. An inspector-general found that Blair had violated conflict-of-interest rules even though he had "no impact on F-22 related work undertaken by IDA". This, along with Blair's unknown views on torture, means that there are still quite a few questions to answer.