Posted on 05/15/2009 6:33:33 PM PDT by LdSentinal
Caught in a web of half-truths, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday accused the CIA of misleading Congress about the waterboarding of top Al Qaeda terrorists. Her brazenness was a thing to behold.
There she was, forced into admitting that she had been well aware the CIA was using the tactic after having insistently led the world to believe otherwise.
Did she apologize for dissembling? Did she beg pardon for failing to be sufficiently clear in her statements? Did she plead that there had been a misunderstanding of what she knew and when?
No, no and no. Cornered, the speaker went on the attack with bravado.
"I am saying that the CIA was misleading the Congress and at the same time the administration was misleading the Congress on weapons of mass destruction," Pelosi declaimed, apparently hoping that shopworn anti-war rhetoric would save the day.
Not this time.
Not when she, as the most powerful figure in the House, has railed against the Bush administration for waterboarding three Al Qaeda ringleaders.
Not when she has also called for establishing a so-called truth commission to ferret out who knew what when about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques after 9/11.
Not when the CIA brought her into the loop about waterboarding early on.
The record is now established that, at the least, Pelosi failed to object to waterboarding when it was going on, and that, at the most, she gave the practice her explicit blessing.
The CIA last week produced logs of briefings about post-9/11 interrogations. Its reconstruction stated that in September 2002, Pelosi was given "a description of the particular" techniques "that had been employed" on master terrorist Abu Zubaydah. Those included waterboarding.
The speaker challenged the CIA's account, asserting that the agency had told her only about techniques that might be used in the future.
Ex-CIA chief Porter Goss, a former Florida congressman who attended the briefing, backed the CIA version. He also remembered Pelosi asking whether the CIA was doing enough.
Yesterday, facing increasingly skeptical questions, Pelosi confessed that in February 2003, the CIA had in fact told one of her top aides that the agency had begun to waterboard a small number of detainees.
Which left Pelosi in the position of trying to argue that she had been truthful because the CIA had never informed her personally. And then she accused the CIA of "misleading" her at her briefing about the then-present use of waterboarding.
Give her the benefit of the doubt, assume Pelosi's memory is accurate - she still learned the facts about waterboarding just a few months later.
What's tortured here is the truth.
“The record is now established that, at the least, Pelosi failed to object to waterboarding when it was going on, and that, at the most, she gave the practice her explicit blessing.”
“Conspiracy to commit torture”, anyone?
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWQzYjlhZTBmYjI2OGUxNzE4YmRlMzE0YWUxZWYyOTQ=
Yea they gotta throw Crazy Nan under the bus now, don’t they?
Double Standard will be employed here as always for the liberals.
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving Liberal witch. Throwing the CIA under the bus isn’t wise, IMO.
she’s twistin in the wind like a g string on a clothes line in March.
Don’t get her just yet, kinda fun too watch
It really had to hurt for the NY Daily News to print this. I can almost picture this editorial writer with tears flowing down his face as Zuckerman sat next to him and threatened to take his autographed Obama poster off the wall if he didn’t do it.
In truth the Daily News is not in the same mudpuddle as the Times when it comes to incessant Obama ass-kissing and if it would just jetison that little creep Mike Lupica and a few others, it would be almost readable.
That was my first thought, too.
Today, I've seen this story covered in all sorts of brand name MSM outlets, and they don't seem to be pulling many punches, or jumping to her defense.
Given the tone of the leftmedia about Nancy PantsOnFire's lies to the public about this, it's a good bet that she'll soon be out of a job at the Capitol.
Drag the rest of the political human waste down with her. They’re all to blame. Egotistical, power-hungry, self-serving RATs and RINOs deserve being exposed. Vote Them All Out
I recommend sending the Pharoh and his Administration, Pelosi, Reid, and the rest of the power-hungry vermin in DC to Afganistan. Send them out in the field with no weapons and let the Taliban teach them what true torture really is. Meanwhile, we can all watch and laugh that they’re getting what they truly have earned and deserve.
Agree. Let them know first hand what it’s about to be surrounded by enemy.
She’s toast.
Good editorial.
Nice compact statement of apparent facts....much needed
**********************************EXCERPT********************************
Finally, on the "did nothing about it" score, the lamest part of Pelosi's defense is the claim that she didn't need to register her dissent because she agreed with Rep. Jane Harman's letter, purportedly "objecting to" the enhanced interrogation tactics. Here's Harman's letter. It contains no objection whatsoever to the tactics.
Ms. Pelosi is twisting in the wind!!
Ms. Pelosi is twisting in the wind!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.