Clockwise from top left: The seal of the Central Intelligence Agency; Supreme Court nominee Sonya Sotomayor before the Senate Judiciary Committee (AP); Surgeon General nominee Regina Benjamin (AP); Goldman Sachs tower in New Jersey (flickr/luismontanez)

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Sonia Sotomayor held the week’s center stage by definition. The first Latina on her way, it seems, to the U.S. Supreme Court. A wise Latina, we hope.

But all around, the news whirled on.

Secrets at the CIA and Dick Cheney and potential prosecution still in the headlines. Golden profit reports on a bailed-out Wall Street … bonuses to follow. Health care legislation moving on Capitol Hill. Casualties mount in Afghanistan. And Barack Obama channels Martin Luther King and Bill Cosby at the NAACP, saying “no excuses.”

This hour, On Point: Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Karen Tumulty, national political correspondent at Time magazine. Her most recent article is “Time for Obama to Step In?”

Doyle McManus, columnist at the Los Angeles Times. He asserts in his most recent column, “The End of Obamania,” that President Obama “has fallen back to Earth.”

Jack Beatty, On Point News Analyst

Graham said those allegations that he knew about the rough tactics by the CIA were false, and he suggested it may be appropriate for a grand jury to look into the program.

“Speaking for myself as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee from mid-2001 to the end of 2002, I was not briefed on these interrogation techniques,” he said.

He continued:

“…[I] am frankly very frustrated that there are these allegations made that everybody knew about it. I think the policy of the Bush administration was to try to bring as many people into the net when they were going to engage in some questionable activity in order to give them cover. In this case, I was not in the net.”

On the question of whether he favors prosecution of Bush administration officials responsible for the interrogation policies, Graham said that should be decided by the judicial branch, with a jury making the final call on whether to prosecute. He said it was appropriate to let judicial institutions weigh the evidence.

“I think they will serve us well in this instance,” he said.

Frederick Hitz got out of college, taught in Africa for a year, practiced some law, didn’t like it. Joined the CIA. Became a spy. Now, decades later, he’s hoping other bright young Americans will do the same.

But the world has changed since James Bond was the fantasy and Tom Clancy wrote his tales. It’s tougher out there. Hard to slip into Al Qaeda’s inner circle. Tough to work with a tarnished U.S. reputation. Still, he says, we’ve got to try.

This hour, On Point: Why spy — and how to spy now — with the longtime Inspector General of the CIA, Frederick Hitz.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Frederick P. Hitz, Inspector General for the CIA from 1990-1998 and author of “Why Spy: Espionage in an Age of Uncertainty”

When America’s spy agencies issued a National Intelligence Estimate two weeks ago stating that Iran shuttered its nuclear weapons program in 2003, it was a blockbuster like few can recall.

The sigh of relief in Washington and around the world was audible. Only recently, President Bush had said a nuclear Iran might ignite “World War III.”

But behind the scenes, among intelligence and foreign policy experts, the reaction is more complicated. No one quite knows what to believe, or what the effect on U.S. policy should be.

This hour, On Point: Iran and the politics of intelligence.

-James Hattori

Guests:

Tim Weiner, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times, and author of “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.”

Flynt Leverett, former senior director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, and analyst at the State Department and CIA. He is now director of the Geopolitics of Energy Initiative at the New America Foundation and author of “Inheriting Syria: Bashar’s Trial by Fire.”

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA Middle East specialist, is resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of “The Islamic Paradox: Shiite Clerics, Sunni Fundamentalists, and the Coming of Arab Democracy.”