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Nancy Pelosi is a bit like Britain's Margaret Thatcher in reverse. Mrs. T. was tough and steely in her public role as prime minister, but womanly, flirtatious, even gossipy, in private. (One of her cabinet members once told me he harbored erotic thoughts about Maggie as she walked past him, trailing a "whiff of Chanel.") In Pelosi's case, it's the other way around. When I first talked to her at her office on Capitol Hill in the third week of April, she had just come from a sisterly ceremony, sharing a platform with Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton to unveil...

WASHINGTON – Democrats just can't seem to get on the same page on national security — and it could cost them dearly on an issue Republicans have dominated for decades. Increasingly, President Barack Obama and Democrats who run Congress are being pulled between the competing interests of party liberals and the rest of the country on Bush-era wartime matters of torture, detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists. The Democratic Party's struggle over how to position itself on these issues is threatening to overshadow Obama's ambitious plans for energy, education and health care. It's also keeping the country looking backward on...

In a world filled with media seemingly unable to multitask, the nation's consumption is steadily subsisting on a diet of Pelosi. Unfortunately, there are some far more viable events going on that are having a hard time breaking the surface. So here... a round up of three alternative issues. HEALTH CARE DETAILS EMERGING The Imminent Demise of Private Health Care InsuranceNYT's Robert Pear is reporting on the detailed approach both House and Senate are taking for Obama's "reform". And for the ingenues who believe that Obama and his minions are not out for universal health care, they should stop listening...

Strangely absent from the recent coverage of Pelosi's past knowledge of U.S. torture policies is any acknowledgement that this story is old news. Really old news. Way back in December, 2007, the Washington Post ran a piece headlined, "Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002." It hit Pelosi with the exact same allegations that have been so breathlessly reported as of late: In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group,...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has backed down slightly in her fight with the CIA, saying that she really meant only to criticize the Bush administration rather than career officials. "My criticism of the manner in which the Bush Administration did not appropriately inform Congress is separate from my respect for those in the intelligence community who work to keep our country safe," Pelosi said in a statement. Pelosi caused an uproar Thursday when she accused the CIA of lying to her about its use of waterboarding – which she considers torture – on terrorism suspects. Her comment came after President...

WASHINGTON -- Earlier this month, I wrote a column outlining two exceptions to the no-torture rule: the ticking time bomb scenario and its less extreme variant in which a high-value terrorist refuses to divulge crucial information that could save innocent lives. The column elicited protest and opposition that were, shall we say, spirited. And occasionally stupid. Dan Froomkin, writing for washingtonpost.com and echoing a common meme among my critics, asserted that "the ticking time bomb scenario only exists in two places: On TV and in the dark fantasies of power-crazed and morally deficient authoritarians." (He later helpfully suggested that my...

Republicans in the House are keeping up the pressure on Pelosi by pushing for answers about what she knew and when she knew it, emailing this report from Rick Klein (whose made it his job to jam up Pelosi on her continued backpedaling): Pelosi told reporters today that she won’t answer questions on the matter until her weekly press conference tomorrow -- keeping the story alive for a full week after ABC News first reported on the intelligence report.... As we wait for answers, Pelosi has found relatively few allies among her fellow Democrats. Pressed by reporters yesterday, House Majority...

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...

Krauthammer also provides some overwhelming factoids regarding Pelosi's charge that the CIA lied to her: "Her charge of the CIA lying to her is utterly implausible. Why would it lie to her and tell all the others the truth? It makes no sense at all; and it was refuted by the black and white Obama CIA memo –– not a memo out of the Prince of Darkness: Bush and Cheney; but Obama CIA –– would show that in the briefing in which she says none of this simulated drowning occurred, they had specifically told her about the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques...

Barack Obama warned Democrats in Congress against making a partisan cause out of the Bush administration's harsh interrogation tactics. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ignoring him - loudly - and the party, from the president on down, may pay the price. So far, it's Pelosi who's suffered the greatest harm. It may never be resolved exactly when she first learned that waterboarding had been used against terror suspects - in 2002 when she was the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee or five months later after she became her party's leader. But the Democrats' claim to the moral high...

In a press briefing, Hse. Spkr. Pelosi (D-CA) said that in 2002 the CIA "misled" her about toture techniques used by the U.S. military. Spkr. Pelosi remarked that she later learned of the military's use of waterboarding in 2003. Recently, Republicans have stated that she and other Democrats were briefed that waterboarding was in use, but did nothing to prevent it. Video at :House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Weekly Legislative Briefing

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...

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama warned Democrats in Congress against making a partisan cause out of the Bush administration's harsh interrogation tactics. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ignoring him — loudly — and the party,.. So far, it's Pelosi who's suffered the greatest harm. It may never be resolved exactly when she first learned that waterboarding had been used against terror suspects .. But the Democrats' claim to the moral high ground on the issue has been blemished by her explanation this week that in early 2003 she shifted her attention to winning political control of the House and didn't wage...

After many failed efforts, Republicans have finally found a weak spot in Nancy Pelosi’s political armor as a fight over detainee interrogations engulfs Ms. Pelosi, Republicans and intelligence officials. The furor was heightened on Friday when the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, pushed back against an assertion by Ms. Pelosi, a Democrat who is the House speaker, that she had been misled by agency representatives seven years ago about harsh treatment of terrorism suspects, a claim that struck a raw nerve at the spy headquarters. Mr. Panetta, a former Democratic congressman from California and a longtime...

Video at the site House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) says he has no "basis" to blame the C.I.A. for lying to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House of Representatives about the type of interrogations they were using at the time, including waterboarding. "I don't draw that conclusion," Rep. Hoyer said on the House floor. Full transcript below:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claim Thursday that CIA officials lied to her about waterboarding prompted a sharp rebuke from Republicans, some pushback from intelligence officials and a lukewarm response from at least one high-ranking member of her own party. Hoping to quell a “what did she know and when did she know it” furor over so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, Pelosi told reporters Thursday that CIA officials “misled” her during a September 2002 briefing by telling her that waterboarding had not been used on terror detainees. “The only mention of waterboarding in the briefing was that it was not being employed,”...

CIA Director Leon Panetta just sent a stern message to his employees defending the agency against Speaker Nancy Pelosi's criticisms. His message: We didn't mislead Congress; stay focused on your job. Panetta's note was sent to reporters via the CIA press office. Here's the key graph: "Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques...

n an interview with ABC News Radio’s Marcus Wilson, Gingrich, R-Ga., said Pelosi, D-Calif., “has lied to the House” in claiming that she was never briefed by the CIA about the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding and other harsh tactics. This audio is the most blistering attack yet launched on the embattled, “spooked” Speaker: CIA Chief Says They Told the Truth!In a related story, Leon Panetta, Obama’s head of the CIA, former Chief of Staff at the Clinton White House and a former Congressman sent a memo today to CIA employees reacting to Pelosi’s charge the Agency lied to Congress...

Harman Letter to CIA Asked Policy, Not Legal Question on Interrogation Methods Rep. Jane Harman wrote about policy concerns, not legal concerns in the letter House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is citing to claim she let the top Intelligence Committee Democrat take the lead in addressing complaints to the CIA about "enhanced" interrogation techniques. FOXNews.com Friday, May 15, 2009 California Rep. Jane Harman wrote about policy concerns, not legal concerns, in the letter House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is citing in her claim that she let the top Intelligence Committee Democrat take the lead in addressing complaints to the CIA about "enhanced"...

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich today offered a blistering critique of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s handling of oversight on harsh interrogation tactics, in a major escalation of partisan attacks being aimed at Pelosi. In an interview with ABC News Radio’s Marcus Wilson, Gingrich, R-Ga., said Pelosi, D-Calif., “has lied to the House” in claiming that she was never briefed by the CIA about the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding and other harsh tactics. "I think she has lied to the House, and I think that the House has an absolute obligation to open an inquiry,...