Liberal Democrats may tout openness, reform and transparency on the campaign trail but those promises never seem to make it past the Beltway when they return to Washington.

In one of the more egregious examples of this truism, one needs to look no further than the efforts by Representative Jim McDermott (D-Washington) to pull a fast one and slip into the intelligence budget a provision that, in a backdoor way, impose fines and prison terms on intelligence officers who "abuse" captured terrorism suspects.

The House Democratic leadership stopped a vote Thursday night on the $50 billion classified intelligence budget after Republicans mounted a campaign against one of its provisions to ban degrading treatment of detainees and some moderate Democrats indicated they would not vote for the bill.

The Republican lawmakers, led by Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Michigan Republican, opposed what they saw as backdoor legislation that would impose fines and prison terms on intelligence officers who abuse captured terrorism suspects.

A Democratic House aide told The Washington Times that the leadership supported the amendment and urged the House Rules Committee to place it in a slate of provisions to the bill known as a managers amendment.

Courtney Littig, a spokeswoman for the House intelligence committee said, "To my knowledge the first time we learned of the McDermott amendment was when we received copies of the amendments from the Rules Committee [Wednesday] afternoon." Rep. Jim McDermott, Washington Democrat, was the original author of the provision, known as the Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Interrogation Prohibition Act of 2010.

The amendment would authorize federal sentences of up to life in prison for cruel interrogation if it led to a detainee's death or other penalties for lesser offenses

The provision is very vague. Who can define "degrading"? The term is subjective and thus open to being used for political ends.

Congressman Hoekstra (R-Michigan), ranking Republican on the House intelligence Committee, led efforts to stop this provision from going forward.

The legislation was inserted into the larger bill without even being considered by his committee. Where is that hope and change? Where is that bipartisanship? We should know better by now-given the disgraceful way Democrats tried to force through Obamacare.

"This was done without committee review and without any feedback or input from the CIA," says the House source. "It just showed up in the middle of the night. It specifically targets those who are keeping us safe. It doesn't respond to what happened at Ft. Hood or Detroit. Instead, it targets the CIA for new criminal punishments."

McDermott has compiled quite a record-for the bad guys.

The amendment's sponsor, Rep. Jim McDermott, made a protest visit to Iraq in 2002 prior to the U.S. invasion. In 2008, a federal indictment against Muthanna Al-Hanooti, the man who arranged Mr. McDermott's trip, said then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's Iraqi intelligence service paid for the trip.

He also has recently signed a letter with 53 other Democratic Congressmen (one has since pulled her signature) decrying Israel's so-called blockade on Gaza (Gaza is getting plenty of supplies in through Israeli checkpoints and there was no mention of Egypt's "blockade)-guess he wants to help Hamas; he is a regular blogger at Huffington Post where he criticizes Israel.

He uses his seat to protect our adversaries, help terror groups, and punish our allies.

Now he is also using it to harm our CIA agents and place handcuffs on them when it comes to interrogating terror suspects.

And he does so through a very slippery maneuver that belies any sort of Democratic claim to be operating in an aboveboard, open and honest manner..