I think that chutzpah is a pretty good word for Nancy Pelosi accusing anyone else of lying about the torture briefings.
I wonder if Hoyer is really going to mount a coup? I hope not — I think that a continuation of Speaker Pelosi is worth a lot of Republican votes a year and a half from know.
[Update early evening]
Who’s lying, Nancy or the CIA? Go take the poll.
To paraphrase the first commenter, is this a trick question?
[Update a few minutes later]
Apparently, the speaker has never learned the first rule of holes:
I won’t rehash the now familiar provisions that explain what torture is. But I do want to focus our attention on a prong of the torture statute, Section 2340A(c), that hasn’t gotten much notice to this point:
Conspiracy.— A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.
So I ask myself, “Self, what difference does it make whether Speaker Pelosi knew the CIA was waterboarding suspects or merely knew the CIA was planning to use waterboarding?” Answer: None.
Unless a victim is killed by torture such that the death penalty comes into play (which is not alleged here), American law regards conspiracy to commit torture as something exactly as serious, punished exactly as severely, as actual torture. As it happens, I don’t think waterboarding as administered by the CIA was torture. But Pelosi says she does. If that’s where you’re coming from, how do you get off the hook by saying you only knew about a plan to torture but not actual torture?
To establish torture conspiracy, a prosecutor wouldn’t even have to prove an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. You just need to show that two or more people agreed to commit the prohibited act. Here, though, by her own account (or at least one of her own accounts), Pelosi knew the CIA was planning to use waterboarding and later learned it was actually being done. So, if Pelosi was told — as the CIA says she was — that waterboarding was being used, that’s another nail in the coffin. But for a prosecutor, it’s just gravy — not at all necessary to the case. As Pelosi herself tells it, she was aware of a conspiracy to torture — which is just as significant under the law as torture itself — and she did nothing about it.
Someone should take away this idiot’s shovel.
She is far too arrogant to give up on her own.
Allah has an Andy Levy quote “Pelosi’s lies are so transparent birds are smashing into them.” or something like that.
That was funny.
I do not know if she lied or not. I have my suspicions, but I really do not know.
One thing I am reasonably sure about is that she is toast and it will be a pleasure to watch her die and to watch Obama watch her die.
Pelosi is not popular with the Dems in the House.
She is viewed as a weak minority leader, and a weak speaker.
Tip O Neill, Carl Albert, Sam Rayburn would never have tolerated the kind of crap Bush and DeLay used to pull.
O Neill would have turned off the salaries of every white house aide who
turned down a subpoena from the House.
Hoyer is viewed as much more aggressive.
Looks like the Clinton curse! Many people who crossed Hillary Clinton during the primaries have had bad things happen to them: John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Bill Richardson, Tom Daschle, Caroline Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi. Obama inherited a mess in the economy and is fast losing his sainthood status. Hillary Clinton on the other hand is enjoying sky-high approval rates and cannot be held accountable for any domestic troubles.
A commenter at John Cole’s Balloon Juice (wasn’t Cole a Right leaning PJM guy at one time) nails the strategy in play here:
= = =
Dems: “Let’s have a truth commission.”
‘Pubs: “No!”
Dems: “Yes!”
‘Pubs: “No!”
Dems: “Yes!”
‘Pubs: “No!”
Dems: … … … “No!”
‘Pubs: “Yes!”
Dems: “Then we’re in agreement?”
‘Pubs: “You betcha, you slimy little tax cheating liar crooks. Haha! We win again!”
= = =
If Pelosi is proven to be lying then it shall also be proven that the Bush Administration engaged in illegal torture. If there was no illegal torture going on, then Pelosi couldn’t have been briefed on it and therefore wouldn’t be lying, now.
I will take that trade.
O Neill would have turned off the salaries of every white house aide who turned down a subpoena from the House.
And he would have done that…how, Mr. Moron?
If Pelosi is proven to be lying then it shall also be proven that the Bush Administration engaged in illegal torture.
How do you figure?
You really need to work on the logic thing, Bill. I never fail to be amazed that you managed to get a law degree.
Bill, you silly goose, the court system has already signed off on the legality of waterboarding, et cetera, so that Democratic horse (“illegal torture”) has long left the barn. Unless you want to fantasize about ex post facto laws being passed — and good luck getting that past the Roberts Court, with our without Ginsburg, who is no fool.
Furthermore, it’s not a crime for a politician to lie to her constituents. It’s just stupid. The “trial” and “conviction” of Pelosi would occur in the political arena, in whether she keeps her job (unlikely) and her seat (very likely; this is San Francisco about which we’re talking after all). Also whether the Democratic Party leadership as a whole is seen as hypocritical smarmy finger-pointers, or sainted bearers of the truth in difficult times.
Yes, you’re probably right that if the present Democratic Party leadership (Pelosi, Reid, et cetera) is found to be hypocritical scumbags complicit in ugly stuff, the past Bush Administration will be, too. But notice the two words I put in italics? “Present” Democratic leadership versus “past” Republican? The thing you naifs on the other side have still not fully grasped is that the Bush Administration is no longer in power. They left office in January. Gone.
So do you really think the Democratic Party comes out the winner if, in exchange for burning their present leadership, they get to burn George Bush once more in effigy?
Actually, I hope so. So does the present Republican leadership, which, as you can see, is perfectly happy to have the Bush Administration roasted — heck, why don’t you condemn the Taft and Grant Admnistrations while you’re at it! Feel free! — if the gain is disarray and tarnish on the present Democratic Party leadership.
Why would Pelosi lie about being briefed on interrogation techniques that weren’t illegal?
Yes, you’re probably right that if the present Democratic Party leadership (Pelosi, Reid, et cetera) is found to be hypocritical scumbags complicit in ugly stuff, the past Bush Administration will be, too.
Not Bush, Cheney. And his buddy Rush Limbaugh and everyone who thinks Charlie Crist and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are RINO squishes who should be driven out of the GOP.
Also, Reid and/or Pelosi getting knocked down is not necessarily bad for Obama.
PS — If folks haven’t noticed, George W. Bush has vanished from sight. I don’t think George has talked to the press since January.
Richard Bruce Cheney on the other hand has just now launched a high profile attack on Barack Obama in defense of “enhanced interrogation” and it shall be interesting to see which Republicans in Congress stand should to shoulder with Dick, going forward.
Wilkerson has of course dropped a bombshell:
“Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002—well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion—its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.
And as Jesse Ventura said the other day:
“Give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and an hour and he’ll confess to the Sharon Tate murders.”
I don’t think George has talked to the press since January.
So? Why would he?
Why would Pelosi lie about being briefed on interrogation techniques that weren’t illegal?
Ummmm…because she’s viciously and mendaciously been using it as a partisan bat to bash Bush with, and it makes her just as complicit in whatever it was, thus taking the wind out of her feigned outrage, regardless of its legality?
Was this a trick question?
“Give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and an hour and he’ll confess to the Sharon Tate murders.”
Sure, he might. What’s his (or your) point?
It’s a stupid comment (like many of Ventura’s — maybe that’s why you like it?), because the administration wasn’t looking for confessions — they were looking for actionable information.
Bill,
even you can’t be this brain dead. How many times does it have to be pointed out that she keeps changing her stories about what she knew, how much she knew and when she knew it.
I’ve seen 3 or 4 versions from her in as many weeks.
And God help them all, regardless of party, if the official (secret) briefings records get released. Which, given the porosity of D.C. politics, is not beyond question. I wouldn’t admit to picking my nose inside the Beltway. And I’d hate to leave my Christmas shopping list laying around among these clowns.
They’d ruin the little one’s Christmas for the practice.
Not Bush, Cheney. And his buddy Rush Limbaugh and everyone who thinks Charlie Crist and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are RINO squishes who should be driven out of the GOP.
Uh huh. Notice the absence of Republican leaders in Congress in that list? Or plausible Republican candidates for Prez in 2012? Where’s Romney or Palin in that list? Not on it, oh dear. You go right ahead and burn Dick Cheney, refugee from the 70s, friend. You can end up a good illustrative Wikipedia example for the term Pyrrhic victory or the folk saying cut off your nose to spite your face.
Also, Reid and/or Pelosi getting knocked down is not necessarily bad for Obama.
In the short term, you’re quite right, and this is exactly why, IMO, this is happening. Team Obama is tightening ship by running it’s first purge, sending the Trotskyites off to the gulag. Nancy dear is going to be hung out to dry. In fact, it’s quite helpful that she dangle and draw the fire of Republican sharpshooters. Notice what else is going on at this time? Obamacare is moving forward in Congress. But that’s not what we’re reading about much, is it? Nope, it’s all about what did Nancy know and when did she know it show-trial theater. Useful for distracting the rubes while nationalized health care is rammed up their…well, let us say wallets. Indeed, the best possible two-fer is that Nancy dangle until Obamacare passes the House. Then she can draw any fire for unpleasant undemocratic taint to that, too.
In the long term…? Probably not. Silly as she is, Nancy is an adult to Team Obama’s culture of ruthless post-adolescent Best ‘n’ Brightest idealogues. She is able, in her dim way, to distinguish between red-meat rhetoric concealing modest power-stealing aims and the true One Ring To Rule Them All fanaticism of the true believer. As such, she would be a useful counterweight to Team Obama.
But, like all arrogant white-hands intellectuals, they’re determined to throw the converts of convenience out of the church, to preserve ideological purity. Since the ideology in question, more or less unreconstructed Stalinism, is a flat-out failure in practise, this merely hastens the day of the collapse. (And, I might add, lengthens the subsequent decades during which people will spit at the mention of the phrase ‘Democratic Party’ or ‘progressive policies.’)
Which is OK by me. People only learn by experience. This generation has to repeat the lesson its parents learned in the 60s and 70s. The sharper the lesson, the longer it will last. Full speed ahead, I say. Throw Nancy overboard and let the true apostles open the throttle, take charge of the tiller, aim more squarely for the rocks.
“O Neill would have turned off the salaries of every white house aide who turned down a subpoena from the House.
And he would have done that…how, Mr. Moron?”
It’s called an appropriations rider. Somewhat like that language that prohibits the spending of public money on propoganda, you just tack onto some bill
wording like “No Executive branch official who has properly received a subpoena to testify under oath before either house of congress or the judiciary and has invoked their 5th amendment right to not testify or invoked Executive Privelige, may receive any compensation from the Treasury for services or expenses until such time as they comply with such same subpoena”.
there is two power to Congress, one is to spend, the other is to write law.
Unless you think the Unitary Executive can draw funds without congressional approval.
It’s called an appropriations rider. Somewhat like that language that prohibits the spending of public money on propoganda, you just tack onto some bill
wording like “No Executive branch official who has properly received a subpoena to testify under oath before either house of congress or the judiciary and has invoked their 5th amendment right to not testify or invoked Executive Privelige, may receive any compensation from the Treasury for services or expenses until such time as they comply with such same subpoena”.
And that would be enforced…how? And the bill would have passed Reagan’s veto pen…how?
Have you ever heard of the concept of a bill of attainder?
Since you’re a moron, I expect not.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that Ms. Pelosi believes and now has evidence that the CIA intentionally and systematically misled Congress on the use of “torture”. Then today why didn’t she, as Speaker of the House, announce that House hearings will begin tomorrow morning, to start investigating the CIA’s willful and intentional acts to mislead Congress? reports to Congress will begin tomorrow? I’ll start to think her latest version of events has some shred of credibility when Ms. Pelosi directs the appropriate House committee chair to immediately begin the appropriate hearings. And if she does not do that, I want her to explain to the public why she is shirking her responsibilities as a member of Congress, to investigate a crime she claims was committed.
“And that would be enforced…how? ”
I don’t know about Radical Conservatives and their fellow travelers,
but, in Washington, a city I have been to, the permanent civil service
follows the law. As annoying as it is, and as troublesome as some
congressional statutes are, the permanent bureaucracy dedicates floors
of minions and lawyers to figure all this out, and grind out the rules.
Now I realize we just finished 8 years with an administration that found the law rather inconvenient, but, most people don’t like being made a party to litigation and trouble.
“And the bill would have passed Reagan’s veto pen…how?”
Well you ask an interesting question, on how you pass political
legislation that the president isn’t going to like, and that’s a bit more
of a wrestling match.
The usual trick is you put it on something the President desperately wants
like say “Executive Office Appropriations” or tie it to some of his key initiatives. It’s called a Poison Pill. Gingrich used to do this to Clinton.
So what’s with the Name Calling anyways? Awful Juvenile, really.
“Unless a victim is killed by torture such that the death penalty comes into play (which is not alleged here), ”
Over 100 prisoners are alleged to have died during enhanced interrogation.
http://www.antiwar.com/photos/perm/dead-iraqi1.jpg
Here’s an Iraqi who died in Custody.
and another
http://www.antiwar.com/photos/perm/iraqiprisonerdead-thumb.gif
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/1-22-2006-87056.asp
and the last is a story about an Iraqi general killed during interrogation.
Er…jack, have you read the first line of the article you linked to last?
A US army officer was guilty of negligent homicide in the death of an Iraqi general during an interrogation, a military court ruled on Saturday.
A military court in the Dread Pirate Bush days, let us note. So in what sense are you laying this death at the feet of Bush Administration policy? Would you like to blame every death of a prisoner in civilian Federal marshal custody this year, plus every civilian death in Afghanistan or Iraq, on Obama Administration policy? If not, why not? Is your position that all actions by subordinates are charged to the Commander in Chief, on a “buck stops here” basis, or just those actions not ordered nor condoned?
In principle you have to choose one or the other, but only if you want to be intellectually consistent and not look like an opportunistic hypocritical halfwit.
“Unless a victim is killed by torture such that the death penalty comes into play”
Here someone was being tortured and Died. So it does seem to happen.
Mr Simberg seems to believe that Torture is harmless and that
numerous prisoners dying is “Fantastic”.
I take that Bill White supports releasing the memos regarding the value of the information received from water boarding.
If White is correct, those memos will show that no actionable information was received.
I wonder why Obama opposes releasing them. Perhaps White will speculate.
I take that Bill White supports releasing the memos regarding the value of the information received from water boarding. If White is correct, those memos will show that no actionable information was received. I wonder why Obama opposes releasing them. Perhaps White will speculate.
Timing is everything . . .
Mr Simberg seems to believe that Torture is harmless and that
numerous prisoners dying is “Fantastic”.
Only to morons who can’t read (or write grammatically).
Bill White said,
“If folks haven’t noticed, George W. Bush has vanished from sight. I don’t think George has talked to the press since January.”
Because you don’t live in Texas. He has been doing a number of public appearances to which he has received standing ovations. He just remains as he always has, ever above reproach and smart enough to not degrade himself further by slinging mud at former or present administrations.
Which must be why they elected her Speaker.
Twice.
I see Bill White is defending Pelosi’s support of waterboarding. I’m not surprised. He’s never seem bothered by torture, as he roughs up logic all the time.
> Timing is everything . . .
Is White doubling-down, asserting that waterboarding produced no actionable information, so Obama is playing rope-a-dope/is waiting until everyone is all-in so he can take the pot or is he suggesting that Obama will release the memos when they’re likely to be ignored?