Nancy Pelosi, As a Liar You Suck. [Video Update]
By SusanUnPC on May 11, 2009 at 10:40 PM in Jane Harman, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Torture
Nancy Pelosi, you’re worse than a 15-year-old getting grilled by angry parental units who caught their kid trying to sneak into the house in the middle of the night. You try in vain to compose creative lies, each one more laughable than the last, while battling the intoxicating effect of a gallon of Thunderbird white wine. At least have the decency to puke on yourself.
First, you said you that the intelligence sources didn’t state clearly that they were actually waterboarding, only that they were mentioning the methods theoretically. Over the weekend, you claimed that your aide who attended the meeting didn’t give you the full story. And now you’re saying, according to Politico, that you held back on criticism out of deference for “appropriate legislative channels” — whatever in the hell that means:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi learned in early 2003 that the Bush administration was waterboarding terror detainees but didn’t protest directly out of respect for “appropriate” legislative channels, a person familiar with the situation said Monday.
The Pelosi camp’s version of events is intended to answer two key questions posed by her critics: When, precisely, did she first learn about waterboarding? And why didn’t she do more to stop it? …
As Larry Johnson would say, if the hole is getting deeper, QUIT DIGGING! Perhaps you should have done what your “bitter rival,” Rep. Jane Harman had the guts to do:
Pelosi has disputed a CIA document, released last week, that shows she was briefed in September 2002 on the “particular” interrogation techniques the United States had used on Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah. Pelosi has said she was told then only that the Bush administration was considering using certain techniques in the future — and that it had the legal authority to do so.
But there’s no dispute that on Feb. 4, 2003 — five months after Pelosi’s September meeting — CIA officials briefed Pelosi aide Michael Sheehy and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), then the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, on the specific techniques that had been used on Zubaydah — including waterboarding.
Harman was so alarmed by what she had heard, she drafted a short letter to the CIA’s general counsel to express “profound” concerns with the tactic — going so far as to ask if waterboarding had been personally “approved by the president.”
According to the Pelosi confidant, Sheehy told Pelosi about the briefing — and later informed Pelosi, the newly elected minority leader, that Harman was drafting a protest letter. Pelosi told Sheehy to tell Harman that she agreed with the letter, the Pelosi insider said. But she did not ask to be listed as a signatory on the letter, the source said, and there is no reference to her in it. …
In other words, you had a great opportunity to TAKE A STAND against torture, but — for you — going along to get along always takes precedence over taking a moral stand.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra hits the nail on the head, per usual:
Republicans aren’t buying it.
“If Nancy was so concerned about the waterboarding, why did she let someone else write the letter?” asked Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on the intelligence committee. “If she was so upset, why did she let someone else raise objections?”
Read all: “Pelosi: Torture protest improper in ’03.”
VIDEO UPDATE: In the last half of his commentary, Brit Hume picks up the Nancy Pelosi story and hits it out of the park:
And, about Wanda Sykes: You’re right, Brit. Please consider also that, if a conservative had said that about a black politician, Janeane Garofalo would call him a “racist.”
by Ronald Scott
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