How the Republicans lost control of the Intelligence Committee

Although the Senate is nominally controlled by Republicans, the Senate intelligence (sic.) committee released a report that followed Democratic party talking points about Saddam and terrorism and contradicting publicly well-known facts. CBS reports that "the Republican chairman of the committee, Pat Roberts, left town without doing interviews, calling the report a rehash of unfounded partisan allegations." The causes of his frustration with his own committee were Senators Hagel (R-Nebraska) and Snowe (R-Maine) who sided with the Democrats on key votes. Interestingly, Byron York's research has also found that Sen. Hagel selected, as a key aide on this work, a former Kerry 2004 campaign volunteer.