The Speaker of the House has come up with yet another reason for why she didn’t say anything about waterboarding at the time:
Pelosi defense: couldn’t object in ’03
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?
Because, apparently, “All along” and “because it didn’t poll well at the time” won’t satisfy anybody at this point. Both Cold Fury and AoSHQ have a good deal of righteous scorn on this one; I’m just going to touch fairly briefly on what this means, going forward.
This story is going to have at least one useful quality to it: we’re going to see who really is an independent voice among the Online Left now. Objectively speaking, it’s obvious to anybody that Pelosi’s simply trying to come up with a story that will be plausible enough to give her some kind of cover; usually, this doesn’t work. But while the Democrats can successfully jettison Murtha, or Dodd, or Visclosky, or Moran, or Burris, or Patrick, or Specter, or Feinstein, or Rangel, or Paterson, or Hastings, or Murray, or Gordon, or [insert your favorite disliked Democrat here]… they can’t jettison the Speaker of the House, if for no other reason than that she’ll almost certainly take anybody who tries out with her. This means that they’re pretty much forced to defend her. So, when you see somebody repeating this latest nonsense, or whatever they’ll come up tomorrow: rest assured, that person’s getting a paycheck from the Democratic Establishment somehow.
Or else is sucking up for one. Which in many ways is even more pathetic.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to Moe Lane.
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Dan McLaughlin
Neil Stevens
Daniel Horowitz
The Pelosi Blah Blah
Idolator (Diary) Tuesday, May 12th at 12:04PM EST (link)This latest pathetic attempt to cover her behind would have made sense if it had been the first response. Instead, we were given denial, symantics and now finaly a “but”. The next response will probably be: “Speaker Pelosi personaly waterboarded only two detainees and was unaware that a third was wateboarded without her participation. The Speaker insists that criminal investigations to proceed on all Republicans, Conservatives, and Democrats that don’t ‘toe-the-line’ for this egregious violation of the third detainees right to kill inocent victims.”
Look at yourself! Have you looked at yourself?!?
Right.
evanm (Diary) Tuesday, May 12th at 12:13PM EST (link)So if that’s the case, then why was she denying two weeks ago that she knew anything about it happening at all? If this was the reason she didn’t oppose it, why hasn’t she said so all along?!
I suppose she had to lie, out of deference to the proper journalistic channels.
Pelosi and the Dems
ConservativeLawStudent Tuesday, May 12th at 12:40PM EST (link)will say whatever is necessary and politically expedient, except for when it is unpopular with the public. Now that “torture” has become the issue of the day, its proper for them to cry out now and make up excuses as they go.
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But Harman did protest
red4ever (Diary) Tuesday, May 12th at 3:05PM EST (link)So, Pelosi repsects legislative channels even if it allows ‘torture.” But, Harman is bad for not respecting legislative channels.
Oh and I am so confusededed.
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
Dante
Speaker Pelosi Touts Her Book Sequel, “Know Your Cower: A Message to America’s Daughters (about Enhanced Interrogation Techniques)”
melvinwinter Tuesday, May 12th at 4:18PM EST (link)That’s the headline of this Onion-style parody of Speaker Pelosi’s denials:
http://optoons.blogspot.com/2009/05/speaker-pelosi-touts-her-book-sequel.html
When cornered, she uses more "ums" per sentence than Obama w/o a teleprompter
bk (Diary) Tuesday, May 12th at 4:40PM EST (link)I didn’t think it was possible.
yet they offer no new legislation to make it torture... (don't come and try to change the subject)
JLenardDetroit (Diary) Tuesday, May 12th at 6:40PM EST (link)They have the power to make it recognized as torture and put an absolute stop to it in, or on behalf of, the U.S. … They, of course, WILL NOT as it would be an admission that it was NOT (and is NOT) Torture! That they do NOT really want it off the table for use by a Democrat President if push really comes to shove. That all those nasty details will have to be examined (as we do here) how ONLY 3 HVI’s have been water-boarded. This Diary is about: The continued What Did They Know And When Did They Know It – not that we will ever let them escape that now/ever…. etc…..
For all you lefty-lurkers who want to change the subject AGAIN – Water-boarding is NOT Torture, Only 3 HVI’s have been water-boarded, etc…. RS discussions at length … we have covered all that ground – don’t bother!!!! Go read it all in those Diaries…. THIS IS ABOUT YOUR LIES!
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