The Nancy Pelosi uproar is an absurd distraction from Bush administration culpability
By David Neiwert Friday May 15, 2009 11:05am
Sean Hannity couldn't have been too pleased last night when his "All American Panel" -- which he usually manages to keep nicely docile -- took a decidedly liberal detour on the subject of Nancy Pelosi's charge that the CIA lied to her.
First, Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, pointed out the obvious:
Why do we think that she is the liar?
Regina Calcaterra, a Democratic consultant, promptly chimed in:
It's a smokescreen. I think this is a smokescreen by Republicans, because Republicans are concerned about Congress holding the Truth Commission, which you know is going to be the parallel to the 9/11 Commission.
Later, Hostin raises the really relevant point:
The issue here is that everybody knows that waterboarding is torture. And that was an approved policy. It is torture! Everyone knows that. And that was the policy of the Bush administration. Why don't we talk about that?
Indeed. Because on Planet Wingnuttia, claiming that "Nancy Pelosi knew about it too" justifies the policy.
The bizarre thing about making this a "he said/she said" issue is that we already know for a fact that the CIA lied to Pelosi about the torture.
Marcy Wheeler points out that (as she's been reporting for weeks,) we already have documentary evidence that "when the CIA briefed Pelosi and Goss on September 4, 2002, it told them that waterboarding was not being employed."
Yet this was in fact a lie. Because we also know from Lawrence Wilkerson that the CIA had been engaging in waterboarding since at least February of that same year. As Marcy observes:
While we can't be sure of the date when Cheney started ordering people to be waterboarded even after they were compliant, we know this order had to have occurred before February 22, 2002--because that's when al-Libi first reported on ties between Iraq and al Qaeda.
... So sometime in February 2002--when Bush was declaring that the Geneva Convention did not apply to al Qaeda and when Bruce Jessen was pitching torture to JPRA--Cheney was personally (according to Wilkerson) ordering up waterboarding. The DIA immediately labeled the result of this session of waterboarding probable disinformation.
The Beltway pundits have been eager to cast Pelosi as a liar. (Wayne Simmons just called Pelosi a "pathological liar" on Fox.) Is Bob Graham a liar too? We're taking the word of the disgraced Porter Goss over the sitting Speaker of the House?
And gee, guess what we're not talking about here. Sonny Hostin, say it again:
The issue here is that everybody knows that waterboarding is torture. And that was an approved policy. It is torture! Everyone knows that. And that was the policy of the Bush administration. Why don't we talk about that?
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Clearly, all of the torturing is Nancy Pelosi's fault. Bush and Cheney were just doing her bidding.
/sarcasm
She personally performed each and every waterboarding as well.
Pelosi is guilty...of something. Hilarious.
had them kidnapped and taken by the CIA to Marin County. There the waterboarding was performed by an animal rights shaman in a hot tub with patchouli scent. After they agreed with Pelosi that is was all America's fault they were forced to sit in a Yoga position while amplified songs of the humpback whale were played until they needed medical attention of a type approved by a government bureaucrat.
Everything, n'est ce pas? /snarky
As I understand it, waterboarding was not torture when Cheney, or some other person ordered it done, but it was torture, if Nancy Pelosi knew about it and didn't stop it, so any torture was all her fault. It makes my head hurt to thhink about it.
What's confusing about that? ;)
Yes, she's a lier, too. The subject is torture/Cheney not Pelosi at the moment. Later, she may get caught, too, but for now the subject is torture/Cheney/Bush
Slight correction: Torture Cheney and Bush
Not advocating violence, just enhanced techniques.
Yes, let's torture them, since it's not torture, it's 'enhanced interrogation techniques.'
I saw Bob Graham interviewed today. Remember how everyone made snippy remarks about him because he kept detailed notebooks about everything he did each day? Well he couldn't write in his notebook what the CIA told him but he could keep an entry about when they came to brief him. I believe it was three out of four dates the CIA got wrong and he corrected them by showing them his notebook entries.
If the CIA got the dates wrong, is it possible they could have gotten the contents of what they said wrong as well?
They have not missed since the little one about WMD.
.
The uproar by the GOP and their Corporate backers is only an echo to the deafening silence from the liberals outcry from several years ago.
H-A-D Democrats mounted an effort to uncover the truth, rather than bury it, and H-A-D Democrats NOT taken forms of accountability off the table, this would be a non-issue.
Someday, Americans will realize the truth...
... Torture happened because Americans stood silent when it mattered.
Now, we have the continuation of Party Politics...
... Rep vs Dem
... Left vs. Right
... Red vs. Blue
Go ahead, perpetuate it more. But do so knowing that as Speaker of the House, even under George W. Bush, when photos were released, when reports from international communities came out, Nancy Pelosi did nothing!!!
Dear Nancy Pelosi,
WHERE IS THE INVESTIGATION???
WHY NO INVESTIGATION???
WHO DO YOU LAY COVER FOR???
IMPEACH THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE!
.
I don't know who or how they managed to turn this around and draw a bead on Palosi but they did a good job. This smells of Karl Rove but I don't know how.
pat,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1242268637210...
anything from the WSJ?
It was an article Rove wrote about Pelosi.
AMAZING.
I read it because I wanted to see how Rove was spinning this regarding Pelosi.
owned and operated by...Ruppert Murdoch.
....Embittered Angry.
I began this by saying the whole thing smelled like something Rove could arrange. Embittered Angry, just showed me the article that Rove had written about Pelosi. He/she wasn't going off the path, just helping me out. Please, don't anyone go off on Embittered, he or she linked that for me, not because he or she is a WSJ fan.
Pat,
You asked, I delivered...
... Others prefer to stick their heads in the sand.
I read that article yesterday and knew what the Liberal uproar was gonna be, "She is not!"
Americans are so conditioned to be partisan, even when they claim they are not, yet readily able to cite their Democratic or Republican point of view as their proof they are not partisan.
But if we all followed the Law, then there would be no issue of Partisanship to back us up because the Rule of Law is NOT partisan.
and that's why I don't give any credibility. It was witten by Rove.
But that's the whole idea to see how Rove is spinning this. See what he thinks and then you can possibly see what his next plan might be. It's like getting a sneak peak at the enemy's plans.
when it is applied to someone who is unpopular, you are then branded as a troll, views are ascribed to you, your IQ or other test scores are imagined to be low, and, for the final insult, your time as a registered commenter will be laid bare for all to see. So don't do it.
how true!
Exactly. One has to be able to read things that one may find distasteful, from sources one deems inappropriate or obscene, in order to grasp the bigger picture of things. It is the moment that one refuses to read articles from sources or papers or journals or publishers that one becomes narrow mined.
Did anyone read these articles back from Dec. 2007?
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Pelosi_did_...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/9/13161...
Funny,
Nancy never mentioned being lied to then?
And why does Jane "Spy, baby Spy" Harman's name keep popping up?
..........is an AIPAC stooge, and got caught on wiretapping when she bargined with AIPAC to vote for Kneepads Nance if AIPAC would guarentee that she got to keep her precious chairmanship, of the Intel committee?? I might have her chair wrong, but basically that's the story, soon to drop into never never land, as all AIPAC spy operations do. USofBLOODYISRAEL, is pulling the strings behind her curtain.
But does her curtains and carpeting match?
Wow, I must have bloodhounds in my family tree. I knew that scent before I even sniffed real hard.
Thanks for that link.
they always do it. They control the right wing fascist neocon nazi corporatist media.
being an idiot.
She broke the same rule as the GOP.
She laid down with dogs...and now she has fleas.
And NO ONE is rising up to help her...not even her own Party.
This isn't about torture. This is about neutering her, and de facto neutering the House...the GOP strategy to winning is to tear down the opponent.
L&P...
Hey, she sat there and ignored the outcry years ago. She saw the photos years ago and did nothing! She's read the reports from the last several years and chose to do nothing.
And her defense for NOT taking action? The CIA lied to me...
Dear Nancy,
STOP LYING TO AMERICA!
.
so...you admit that the Bush policies are illegal?
Where is your outrage against the creators of this clusterfuck.
...at least with honesty. This Pelosi bullshit is nothing more than a GOP planted distraction to give Bush/Cheney& company time...that some liberals have unknowingly bought into.
L&P
I don't need to prove the size of my penis to you.
I've been a vocal opponent of the BushCo for some time now.
I called it TORTURE back in 2003/04.
I sat in at my House Rep's office to persuade him to sign on to Impeaching Bush/Cheney. He finally did. TWICE!
I've blogged at Conyers site until the (S)elections of 2008 when he banned me.
I supported the Pelosi constituents back in '06 when they called for her impeachment due to charges of misprision f Duty.
I attempted to lobby my House Rep to investigate the Speaker of the House for Obstruction of the People's Justice; failed.
Happy?
Or do you prefer to continue propping up a woman who saw her Nation get pared and do nothing.
Again I say,
She knew in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and now in 2009 she claims she was lied to? Fine then, where are her calls for an investigation?
Whereas some people prefer to play "Follow the Leader"...
... America was founded on "Following the Rule of Law".
.
Again I say,
She knew in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and now in 2009 she claims she was lied to? Fine then, where are her calls for an investigation?
You already know the answer. I've said it before, but...I have no problem saying it again.
"You lay down with dogs, you get fleas."
Complicity in this case might only require censure, or a reprimand maybe even impeachment or recall by her state.
However, she did not COMMITT the crime. The perpetrators did, and the punishment for that could be jail or worse...if deemed as treasonous...death by hanging.
Get away drivers are NOT innocent bystanders.
Your Pelosi rage is a bit out of order.
Of course we should. It's about frigging' time to do so.
I almost want to LOL or cry in shame.
LOL at the slumber America is stirring from. I'm years ahead in my horror at what Americans allowed their Nation to become.
And I cry in shame that Americans still prefer to follow a Leader rather than the Law.
.
You know, She thought they'd lose, that it would be hard, so she decided to just fuck it and go along with the program.
OK, let's stop playing Fox board games and go after the real criminals.
It's "get Nancy Pelosi week".
So Pelosi should step down for possibly knowing about something bush and cheney were definately doing that was against the law? Meanwhile, bush and cheney should go free?
Of course not. Two wrongs make it right, YES?
I'd be fine with Nancy sharing a cell with Condi.
They'll sale the dvd at Chinese Walmarts.
{|\}
One 1955 MK-ULTRA document refers to the study of an assortment of mind-altering substances described as follows:
1. Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public.
LOL (jaws theme)
and prepare to reap the whirlwind that WILL be brought about by the continuation of policies which make the policies that bred the terrorists acts of 9/11 look like an age of benevolence.
The more I watch Pelosi over the last few days it is painfully obvious she is hanging herself with every word she says. She is 100% spinning. However, the Bushies were ultimately in charge and decided to commit War Crime after War Crime. Pelosi is not responsible for this.
-Here's is a Lincoln quote someone should have been screaming in early 2003:
http://yellingatthemoon.com/2009/05/15/the-po...
to one Led Zeppelin record then I ever will from these All American Hannity morons.
my son discovered them. Whatever I learned wore off with whatever I was taking at the time. But the music is still amazing.
Seems with the focus on Pelosi now, no one is talking about cheney's tv tour any longer. Was that the plan?
bullsh*t into peoples heads.
Pelosi wants an investigation and the gop sided with the CIA does not.
I wonder if anybody made copies of the torture tapes that the CIA said they destroyed.
I don't see how obama can continue to try to cover it up.
Pelosi's biggest mistake was taking impeachment off the table for political gain.
That karma has come back to get her.
She should step down as speaker.
she'll be "dancing" for a while.
I agree!
Karma's b!tch...
... And here we see it in action.
Had Pelosi NOT removed accountability, she could at least have her impeachment hearings of BushCo as her evidence that she attempted to right this wrong. But that's not what she did...
... And now can only point fingers back.
was her biggest mistake.
At least for some of us.
Not quite.
We all wondered what the gop had on Democratic leaders to prevent impeachment, and this certainly give the impression of being that cause.
I just won't jump on her her because the MSM says I should. I need more reliable information.
Well, like others have already said, turdblossom is not an unimpeachable source.
unimpeached. Put them where they can fertilize the peaches.
WRONG!
Impeachment was very much on target in 2006, 2007, and 2008.
Yet she chose otherwise.
I wish people would stop apologizing for her flea bites.
to investigate all matters related to the use of and gathering of intelligence surrounding the war on terror.
Is she is the real Democratic leader of the House, her colleagues will grant her this request. No waiting for the Senate. No need for a Truth or Consequences Commission. It is really quite simple. It is what the
Senate did with Watergate. A third rate burglary, Remember?
I know. This is why I don't get the people who are so quick to apologize for her flea bites. Honestly, I don't see her moving in that direction...
... If past history is any indication of future performance.
even after cursing the time it wasted scratching fleas.
Right on!!
See getalife a little up the page.
.
Shorter Pelosi: "Stop pointing at that zit on the tip of my nose, pizza face."
.
But have you answered the charge about the size of your tallywhacker yet?
You just want to see mine...
dimensions.
Well, I live with it daily. But others can't handle the truth...
When you watched the media just sit on their hands during the run up to the War in Iraq and allow the Cheney Administration to dishonor America, it's not surprising that they find it easier to battle Nancy Pelosi than acknowledging their own failures as reporters or their own failure to be objective because after all it was this same CIA Agency that provided the “ACCURATE” information for the justification for going to WAR.
We can always count on the media to ask the “Tough Question” right; you know like John King’s interview with Dick Cheney, you know like All of Fox interviews with Dick Cheney right and that very insightful interview with Dick Cheney on Face the Nation. We all know there were no restrictions put in place for asking Cheney tough questions , Dick Cheney wanted everything on the table, absolutely nothing was off limits was there? We all know that Dick Cheney has volunteered to go Rachel Maddow’s Show but she continuously turns him down. We all know he has been begging to discuss his Administration with David Shuster but David Shuster was too busy praising the intellectual wisdom of Miss California and we all know that Cheney is a man of un-measureable courage that he would never send his daughter out to fight his battles for him.
We all know that Cheney loved his country so much that he not only signed up for one tour of duty in the Vietnam War but he signed up twice while at the same time Collin Powell was ducking and hiding like the coward that he is because he didn’t feel his country was worth standing up for.
And we know that media would never allow themselves to get sidetracked into becoming a protectionist for the Cheney Administration’s Authorization for Torture because that would be malpractice wouldn’t?
But Nancy Pelosi is the Real Enemy Right
"SLAM DUNK!"
money yet.
One could suggest that the "REAL" enemy is the American people who stood silently by, preferring to play "Follow the Leader" rather than the Law. Pogo is more correct than Americans will ever admit.
...states that the "people who stood silently by" are more culpable than the actual prepetrators. And you can't fairly(or logically) lump Pelosi with the Torture criminals simply because you have prior isses with her("Impeachment is off the table").
L&L
THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ...
... Is not an ordinary citizen.
She stood silently by and lobbied others in Congress o do likewise.
SHE TOOK AN OATH OF OFFICE...
... “I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/oathoffice...
She evaded...
She had mental reservations(there aren't enough votes)...
.
...and if I'm wrong I will apologize to you. To me this whole thing stinks of Rove, and yes I am always willing to give an elected memeber of my party the benefit of doubt, especially when I know that the Republicans created, covered up, and continue to insult all of our intelligences concerning this embarrassing, murderous horror.
that Land L is right about not losing sight of who the real criminals are, regardless of how spineless the Democrats were at the time this all started.
Unfortunately, having stated that she was lied to puts Pelosi in a position now that she has to make a serious investigation happen regardless of what the Democrats who control the Senate and the White House prefer.
Anything less and she looks even more complicit and the torturers walk away with another victim.
CIA Director Leon Panetta says agency records show CIA officers briefed lawmakers truthfully in 2002 on methods of interrogating terrorism suspects, but it is up to Congress to reach its own conclusions about what happened.
Maybe they told Pelosi they weren't waterboarding- meaning NOT ON THE DAY OF THE BREIFING. Yesterday, tomorrow, that's a different question. Sort of like when Bill said I didn't have sex with that woman. The exact wording and meaning counts when you are trying to cover your ass.
Hell, cheney said he was proud of it.
Now, the lies and the cover ups of who knew what and when.
This should have been settled with impeachment but the dems chose politics instead.
any major musical current that defined this decade.
I was thinking, in the 60s we had Rock'n'Roll, in the 70s we had Disco, in the 80s it was a struggle between Glam Rock, Heavy Metal, and Rap, then we moved on to the Grunge/Rap tandem of the 90s. And I was struggling to figure out what was the music that was defining (or could be used to define) this decade.
And it dawned upon me, it had been always under my nose: This decade's defining music movement is none other than the Neocon Logical Dissonance.
Ugh, I pitty the people coming of age in this decade... such a lousy soundtrack to relive your memories to.
morally DEAD. They look like Utopia compared to our current situation.
they have all that wonderful talent from "American Idol" //rolls eyes//
I've been waiting for some sort of definitive musical current since my days as a teenager in the '80's listening to hardcore. Rap ain't music, IMO - and I'm STILL waiting. C'mon kids, you can do it!
I'm no fan of queen pelosi, but I'm inclined to favor her side.
The reason is politicians talk in such legalese, presumably during briefings as well, one can argue about not just what was said, but how clearly. Afterall, if it's too clearly, one could open themselves up to prosecution.
Additionally, was where was the commens regarding torture made, in background materials or in the section of key policy points?
They can then said they spoke the truth, but it's not their fault if there was another interpretation, which they may have intended in the form of plausible deniability.
Remember how booshco said for the longest time they made no connection between Iraq and 9-11?
They just kept repeating the two themes in tandem so often the same effect was made.
Just a couple of years ago there was a poll that showed half the US still thought Saddam had something to do with 9-11. I would bet about 21 percent do to this day.
About 4 years ago, a co-worker was handing out cartoons (coloring books pages?) of someone reaching out from the wreckage of the World Trade towers, to soldiers marching off to Iraq to avenge them.
Since this person had some authority over me, I just took it without comment, and once out of sight stuffed it into my pocket.
Even then the connection mystified me, since it seemed new to me.
to remember.
I love watching the Hannity LieMobile veer off the road and crash into the tree of truth! Sunny Hostin and Regina Calcaterra hijacked it and pwned poor li'l ol' Sean!
Wish we could have seen his face when they said that, I'd bet a hundred bucks his jaw hit the table like he'd been gobsmacked!
did nothing for the next 6 years except aid and abet.
Usandthemusandthemusandthemusandthemusandthem...never fucking gets us anywhere.
sympathy for the goddam devil.
OK, so after a week of "the Dems tortured too" are the republicans going to go back to "we didn't do it" next week, or will we be spared that particular republican stupidity?
The reason the right is trying to pin blame on Pelosi is simple. They think torture is a partisan issue, like everything else in their world. They think if they prove that Pelosi's hands are dirty when it comes to torture, that the left will drop the issue.
They're wrong, of course. *IF* Pelosi was complicit, then the left - at least the net and grass roots - will add her to the list of those who need to be held responsible.
A minor quibble though: I wonder if the CIA is *technically* correct about the dates for waterboarding. Maybe *they* weren't using it on detainees at the time they claim they weren't. Maybe the waterboarding was being done for them by other countries. It's a sleazy distinction; but, hey, we're talking about the CIA here.
i concur.
Interesting CIA point.
this whole "It's not a crime if Nancy knew about it" meme is truely insane.
waterboarding, walling, rendition, or anything else. We just half heartedly threatened the Republicans with an examination of their own dear leader.
Is that what they're saying? Hhehehahah!
Unbelievable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3mceuKFq78&fe...
... that Democrats again fall for the 'Red Herring' that the repugs dragged across he pond. They did this back in Clinton's days, they did it with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. Then again with ACORN and probably others not on the top of my head right now.
The meeting was classified.
They probably talked of EIT and not waterboarding.
Only BushCo could have stopped it
Passing a law against it was useless since waterboarding was already illegal, and BushCo would have just added another signing statement.
.
Funny,
If Republicans are shaming the Nation about TORTURE and implicating the Speaker's knowledge of TORTURE, then are they tacitly witnessing that in fact, EIT's are really another form of TORTURE? And if so, what then is left for them to defend, but WAR CRIMES?
Because, by all of their forms of logic, EIT's are not TORTURE and therefore are not a big deal and the Speaker's knowledge should be a non issue...
... NO?
.
If they are saying she knew there was something going on, they are saying there was something going on to know about.
On Wed. or Thurs. Crowley on CNN erroneously suggested that the Pelosi story somehow dilutes the torture story, but if fact it just adds to the stew.
Crowley of CNN couched torture firmly in partisan politics without even thinking.
Making glorious speeches is not the only part of the job title. I am afraid the shine is falling off of the turd, or this is the god of rope a dope. The middle class is strangling, more manufacturing disappearing, the banks are prospering and don't even have to provide their own lobby money, and we can't even get a friggin aknowledgment of a commitment of war crimes by the man let alone an investigation, which of course would put an end to all the who knew what when, and what is torture. Let's keep looking forward even though we hear a freight train behind us.
... your fellow C&L bloggers have completely fallen prey to the distraction. Just scroll up to today's newer posts for the evidence.
and ANGER
John, please explain your puzzling flip-flop today.
the pods seem to be restless today, i once had a collie who was a pretty dog , but you could look into her eyes and see she was dumb as a post, nancys got my collies eyes, shes lieing about not knowing about waterboarding , how can you tell , her lips are moveing! impeachements off the table! bwhaaaaaa hahhha ha
The scared, bedwetting Reslugs on Faux Noise are going BAT CRAZY again and spewing lies, distortions and idiotic comments. Some things NEVER change.
Once again the republicans are duping the lazy dopes in the msm. Instead of just repeating and spewing republican bullshit maybe just once the msm can dig for the facts and challenge what the republicans are saying. Time after time the republicans use the oldest ploy in the book; distraction, deflection and reverse heat. The msm falls for it every time.
So if Pelosi knew about torture doesn’t that implicate the republicans and Bush and Cheney who actually ordered the US to torture. They tortured not Pelosi. The msm is to dumb, lazy and incompetent to report on this the actual story here because they got a make believe controversy to cover.
Where are all the democratic out dependign defendign Pelosi and shovign this bullshit back up teh republcans ass. This happens aevery time to corwardly democratic are tomafraid to stand up for one of her own. The repubckan do it so well.
In teh absuence of a united defence the lies adn ecreption become teh truth.
Why noit come out and say this is asmoke screen. hHell teh msm actually give you coverage
If waterboarding isn't torture then what does it matter if or when Pelosi knew about it?
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