Me - It's interesting to watch the lies fly from Pelosi's lips. She is really no different than a typical LWE on SI. She spews calumny effortlessly, obfuscates, changes the parameters & lies some more.
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The Cia and Pelosi have a throw down
Betsy's Page
First Pelosi accused the CIA of misleading her about methods used to interrogate prisoners. When asked if they lied to her, she quickly responded "Yes" and then, just as quickly, changed it to the favored politician's word for lie - "mislead." Yesterday, I wondered how that former Democratic colleague of Pelosi, Leon Panetta, would respond.
He responded yesterday and he's thrown in his lot with his new job. As head of the CIA, he couldn't allow his agency to be accused of lying to Congress. That's a felony and not much appreciated at Langley. In an open letter to CIA employees and to the press, he wrote,
<<< Panetta, President Obama's pick to run the clandestine agency and President Clinton's former chief of staff, wrote in a memo to CIA employees Friday that "CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing 'the enhanced techniques that had been employed,'" according to CIA records.
"We are an agency of high integrity, professionalism and dedication," Panetta said in the memo. "Our task is to tell it like it is — even if that’s not what people always want to hear. Keep it up. Our national security depends on it." >>>
Notice the verb tense "had been employed." The past perfect there answers Pelosi's allegation that they didn't tell her they had used waterboarding, just that they might in the future.
Then Panetta advised CIA workers to ignore the hullabaloo and focus on their work. As if! The Speaker of the House accuses CIA operatives of lying to Congress and they're supposed to ignore it? Come on.
Pelosi, realizing that picking a fight with the CIA is a no-winner, especially when they have all the evidence in their hands and can leak to the press to prove that she is the one who is lying, has backed off. Her new statement says,
<<< "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," >>>
Translation: Please, can't we forget all this back and forth and get back to what I really want to be doing: bashing Bushies. Please, please, CIA, don't hurt me."
I don't think that Pelosi is in danger of losing her Speakership over this. She has too tight a control over her party. But she's wounded and, in politics, it's never good for one of your party leaders to be wounded. Just remember how hard it was for the Republicans to overcome their image in the press once Gingrich had been wounded over his book deal and descriptions of him as the "Gingrich who stole Christmas" and then whining about what door he had to leave Air Force One. The media did the injuring in Gingrich's case. Pelosi did this all to herself. No wonder Republicans are smiling beneath their self-righteous denunciations.
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