Brennan Faces Senate Hearing This Afternoon

Targeted killing program will be focus of questions (or at least lengthy senator speeches posing as questions).

A Senate panel will hold confirmation hearings on Thursday afternoon for John O. Brennan, President Obama's nominee to take over the Central Intelligence Agency, amid new revelations about the Obama administration's targeted killing program that Mr. Brennan has helped oversee.

Mr. Brennan, who has wielded tremendous power as the president's top White House counterterrorism adviser, is expected to face occasionally sharp questioning on a range of topics: from the drone campaign in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere to his role in the Bush administration's detention and interrogation program carried out while he was a top official at the C.I.A.