Pelosi's tortured press performance ... Mark Steyn

OC Register ^ | 16 May 2009 | Mark Steyn

[Rummyfan]

Let's just cut to the chase and handcuff Cheney and Pelosi to a radiator in a CIA safe house somewhere.

Uh-oh. Nancy Pelosi's performance at her press conference re: waterboarding has raised, according to The Washington Post, "troubling new questions about the Speaker's credibility." The dreaded T-word: "troubling." I doubt it will "trouble" the media for long, or at least not to the extent of bringing the Pelosi Speakership to a sudden end – and needless to say I'm all in favor of Nancy remaining the face of Congressional Democrats until November 2010. But her inconsistent statements do suggest a useful way of looking at America's tortured "torture" debate: Question: What does Dick Cheney think of waterboarding?

[mylife]

The man is a thinker. He hasn’t had his head filled with Ivy League clap trap

[stop_fascism]

Pelosi wanted the CIA to inject the Gitmo Guys with Botulism, but they refused. They didn’t want to cause permanent damage like facial paralysis.

[Cicero]

A good question from the press would be: When did it dawn on you that you could use waterboarding as a political issue with which to bludgeon the Bush Administration?

When they got the talking-points fax from the DNC.

[BOBTHENAILER]

Senator Feinstein says airily that no reasonable person would hold dear Nancy to account for what she supported all those years ago. But it's OK to hold Cheney or some no-name Justice Department backroom boy to account?

Steyn pours the water on the RAT noses--and they choke.

[Ann Archy]

California is a state full of GIRLIE MEN and MANLY GIRLS.

[freedumb2003]

>>Right on the mark!

I think you mean: Right on the Mark!

:)

[autumnraine]

Greatest writer ever, brilliant, to the point and I can’t help but read in his oh so sexy accent/voice.

[gibsosa]

bump

[BOBTHENAILER]

yes it is............

[milwguy]

He is up there, but I think Victor Davis Hanson and Thomas Sowell give him a run for his money. Steyn does have an acerbic witty nature to his writings that always leave me smiling.

[roses of sharon]

My favorite.

In effect, the senator is saying waterboarding was acceptable in 2002, but not by 2009. The waterboarding didn't change, but the country did. It was no longer America's war but Bush's war. And it was no longer a bipartisan interrogation technique that enjoyed the explicit approval of both parties' leaderships, but a grubby Bush-Cheney-Rummy war crime.

[Calm_Cool_and_Elected]

ping for later

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

But it's OK to hold Cheney or some no-name Justice Department backroom boy to account?

Well, sure. It's the Miss USA standard of political integrity: Carrie Prejean and Barack Obama have the same publicly stated views on gay marriage. But the politically correct enforcers know that Barack doesn't mean it, so that's okay, whereas Carrie does, so that's a hate crime. In the torture debate, Pelosi is Obama and Dick Cheney is Carrie Prejean. Dick means it, because to him this is an issue of national security. Nancy doesn't, because to her it's about the shifting breezes of political viability.

Excellent observation by Steyn.

[TaxMe]

Agreed! VDH is a better writer than Steyn, in my opinion. Christopher Hitches is as well, although I don’t agree with most of what he says.

[mulligan]

It is torture every time she speaks, and double torture if you have to view the person.