(Bump text is below- Editor)
Speaker Tablecloth, a/k/a Nancy Pelosi, has done something that President Barack Obama has promised to but on which he failed to deliver, to with Speaker Tablecloth has united the left and the right. First Speaker Tablecloth, Associated Press [1]:
[2]Pelosi was particularly harsh in describing the CIA.
“They mislead us all the time,” she said. And when a reporter asked whether the agency lied, she did not disagree.
She also suggested that the current Republican criticism marked an attempt to divert attention from the Bush administration’s actions.
“They misrepresented every step of the way, and they don’t want that focus on them, so they try to turn the attention on us,” she said
Video:
First fro the right, Gateway Pundit [3];
Speaker Pelosi [sic Tablecloth] attacked the CIA as liars and tried to put the focus back on the Bush Administration in her press conference today.
It didn’t work too well.
Michael Goldfarb, Weekly Standard [4]:
Just so we can get this straight, it’s only now that Pelosi has decided the CIA lied to her, years after the controversy began and weeks after this particular controversy began? Or even giving Pelosi the benefit of the doubt about that first briefing, Sheehy still told her just a few months later, in early 2003, that she was lied to, and as minority leader, she did nothing? She didn’t look into it, didn’t raise it with George Tenet, didn’t even write a letter protesting the CIA’s conduct? It’s ludicrous.
And from hate left, John Cole, Balloon Juice [5]:
I still maintain that I would be flabbergasted to learn that the Democrats knew nothing. I would suspect they were told the minimum and everyone involved liked it that way, given the political climate at the time. This from the actual presser didn’t exactly inspire confidence in Pelosi’s assertion that she knew nothing:
So let me recap, the second most powerful person in the federal government, accuses an agency of that government, the Central Intelligence Agency. of lying to her, six or seven years ago, depending which account she cites. Yet she cites no letter she wrote to the CIA to protest any of the agency’s alleged misdeeds. Speaker Tablecloth has been Speaker for over two years, but her House never held one hearing into the misdeeds she alleges.
If Speaker Tablecloth is telling the whole unvarnished truth, which nobody seems incline to accept, she should resign in disgrace for sheer impotence. According to Speaker Tablecloth, the CIA misled, or lied to her, she has know about this for six years, but never did anything. There is an expiration date on credibility and it has long since expired.
Update and Bump I: Eric
Look, whatever else might be said about all this, it has become emblematic for what the Democrats offer America. It goes directly the heart of what credibility issues the Democrats bring to the table. It’s obvious that Pelosi knew what was going on, and that she’s been caught lying to the American people. It’s equally obvious why she would lie about this; she needed to not know to give her claims against the Republicans on Iraq any credibility at all.
Pelosi’s claim that the CIA lied specifically to HER is laughable on it’s face, given the number of other people who were briefed when she was. Even absent that, why would the CIA lie specifically to her, alone, and not also to the remainder of Congress? Even assuming it wold be desirable.. or even possible… to do so, she wasn’t even in a particularly powerful position when the briefings took place. So why bother?
There is a larger problem, here; one that Pelosi apparently hasn’t accounted for. Her multiple accounts on the happenings of that time frame tend to incriminate other members of Congress at the time. The likelihood of other congress critters leaping to Pelosi’s defense , thereby seems rather small.
And yet, if Pelosi actually sticks to her story, and the Republicans actually grow a spine and press the matter tothe point of congressional hears..(Which I would urge them to do) the other people in the room for such briefings would end up being called for their testimony about what was said, who knew what, when, and so on. The result of that testimony will certainly be damaging to the credibility of the Democrats as a whole, not just the speaker herself, given that they were the ones who made a campaign issue of water boarding, apparently on the false pretext that it was done without their knowledge or approval. That credibility issue will undoutedly come up during the run up to the 2010 midterm elections, just when the Democrats can least afford such revelations. Given the polling data we’ve repeatedly seen that indicates an approval of the vast majority of Americans that waterboarding was used under those conditions, that can only play against the Democrats.
My take based on all this is that Pelosi will be walking the plank sometime over the summer. The Dems will want to… will desperately need to… cut their losses, both in the interests of their urrent agenda and for the 2010 midterms. The likely replacement being Stenny Hoyer, someone who already ahs been luke-warm at best on the notion of defending his current boss.
The way this is playing, though, has wider implications than just Madame Speaker, and will be problematic for the Democrats regardless of Pelosi’s future. Again, look at the number of Democrats other than Pelosi, who also knew about what the CIA was doing, yet didn’t raise objections at the time. The credibility of these has been damaged, each to the degree to which they signed on to the overall Democrat strategy of painting the Republicans’ the ‘party of torture’. However Pelosi’s future develops, the image of the Demorat party as a whole, being the party of liars, has been reinforced in a way unlikley to be washed away in the next two election cycles.
Update and Bump II: (David L)
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich from ABC News [6]:
“I think this is the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I’ve seen in my lifetime.”
“She is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowist of purposes, and she dishonors the Congress by her behavior.”
“Speaker Pelosi’s the big loser, because she either comes across as incompetent, or dishonest. Those are the only two defenses”
Pelosi claimed the CIA lied to her in either 2002, or 2003, yet she only now raises the complaint. Call it what you will, Pelosi story in not credible.