The Politics of Liberal Amnesia

Quote from tmarket:

I don't believe you actually read what you quoted. Nancy Pelosi wasn't even the minority leader let alone the majority leader in September, 2002, when she was briefed. The briefing was a description of EIT and it claimed that water boarding was legal but not used.

I can read just fine. Perhaps you should work on your comprehension. Nancy Pelosi was the ranking democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She received the same briefings as the chairman, Porter Goss. Congress received 40 briefings from the CIA on enhanced interrogations.

What Congress Knew
Congress got 40 briefings from the CIA on interrogations.

On September 4, 2002, Porter Goss, then the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Nancy Pelosi, the ranking Democratic member, were given a classified briefing by the CIA on what the Agency calls "enhanced interrogation techniques," or, in persistent media parlance, "torture." In particular, the CIA briefed the members on the use of these techniques on Abu Zubaydah, a high-ranking al Qaeda operative captured in Pakistan the previous March.

Abu Zubaydah was a name the future Speaker was already familiar with. That spring, information obtained from the terrorist had the FBI and other government agencies scrambling to prevent possible attacks on the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. It wasn't clear whether Abu Zubaydah was being truthful. "He is also very skilled at avoiding interrogation," Ms. Pelosi was quoted in Time magazine. "He is an agent of disinformation." It is precisely for such reasons that the CIA resorted to its enhanced techniques later that year, after gaining legal authorization.

These days, Speaker Pelosi insists she heard and saw no evil. "We were not -- I repeat -- were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used," she told reporters late last month. "What they did tell us is that they had . . . the Office of Legal Counsel opinions [and] that they could be used, but not that they would."

That doesn't square with the memory of Mr. Goss, who has noted that "we were briefed, and we certainly understood what the CIA was doing," adding that "Not only was there no objection, there was actually concern about whether the agency was doing enough."
From the CIA

Ms. Pelosi's denials are also difficult to square with a chronology of 40 CIA briefings to Congressional Members compiled by the CIA and released this week by Director Leon Panetta. For the September 4, 2002 meeting, the CIA's summary of the discussion reads: "Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed." We emphasize the verb tense to underscore the contradiction with Ms. Pelosi's categorical denials of last month.

Ms. Pelosi was replaced by Jane Harman as the Committee's ranking member, but the bipartisan briefings continued. On February 4, 2003, Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence were given a briefing in which "EITs [were] 'described in considerable detail,' including 'how the water board was used.' The process by which the techniques were approved by DoJ was also raised." The document also adds that Mr. Rockefeller, the Committee's ranking Democrat, was later given an "individual briefing."

Nor was that the only time Mr. Rockefeller, who chaired the Committee from 2007 to 2009, heard from the CIA. The West Virginian was briefed at least 12 times more about interrogation techniques, legal authorities and other aspects of the program. The last, in June 2008, was offered to 10 members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and covered "discussion of EITs and the OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] opinions. Specific mentions of waterboarding numerous time."

Yet in October 2008, following a Washington Post report on the existence of the OLC memos, Mr. Rockefeller disclaimed any knowledge of the opinions. "If White House documents exist that set the policy for the use of coercive techniques such as waterboarding, those documents have been kept from the committee," said Mr. Rockefeller. "That is unacceptable, and represents the latest example of the Bush Administration withholding critical information from Congress and the American people in an attempt to limit our oversight of sensitive intelligence collection activities."

Amusingly, or almost, Senator Rockefeller's denial is flatly contradicted by his own report on the subject released last month, which notes that "On May 19, 2008, the Department of Justice and the Central Intelligence Agency provided the Committee with access to all opinions and a number of other documents prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel . . . concerning the legality of the CIA's detention and interrogation program. Five of these documents provided addressed the use of waterboarding."

So much for the canard that the Bush Administration didn't keep Congress informed. But Congressional Democrats are being equally disingenuous when they pretend they could do nothing about what they were hearing from the CIA. Members could, and sometimes did, object to proposed CIA actions and could stop them in their tracks.

More importantly, Congress had the power of the purse. Pete Hoekstra, the House Committee's current ranking member, tells us there was "pretty bipartisan support for the authorization bills and the funding bills," at least until the issue blew wide in the pages of the press. Latter-day opponents of the interrogation techniques, he adds, "never used a tool that was available to them if they wanted to stop them."

We suspect a last line of Democratic defense will be that the Members privately objected to the practices and made their concerns known to the CIA. That seems to be the case with Ms. Harman, who wrote the CIA just days after she was first briefed saying the interrogation practices raised "profound policy questions" and that she was "concerned about whether these have been as rigorously examined as the legal questions." Ironically, Ms. Harman now finds herself a target on the left for the unrelated AIPAC non-scandal.

If there were other Members who objected strenuously to the techniques at the time, let's see their letters. Otherwise, perhaps the CIA should release whatever notes they kept of the briefings. Our guess is that's one pile of memos Speaker Pelosi & Co. aren't especially eager to declassify.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124182533815302417.html#mod=djemEditorialPage
More...
 
Pelosi keeps digging a deeper hole.

Pelosi: Torture protest improper in '03
By: Glenn Thrush and John Bresnahan
May 11, 2009 08:14 PM EST

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?

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.

Pelosi and Harman, sometimes bitter rivals, have still not discussed the controversy since it broke three weeks ago, according to Democratic insiders.

Sheehy has not responded to several calls and e-mails seeking comment on what he told Pelosi during this period. But the Pelosi confidant — who spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity — insisted that Pelosi did all that she could have done.

“She felt that the appropriate response was the letter from Harman, because Jane was the one who was briefed,” said the person. Pelosi “never got briefed on it personally, and when Harman got a ‘no response’ from the CIA, there was nothing more that could be done.”

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?”

Hoekstra has asked the CIA for documents on its congressional briefings, and he told POLITICO Monday that he has made a request for e-mails from agency staffers detailing their interactions with Pelosi and other House and Senate members. Steve Elmendorf, who served as chief of staff to former Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), said that coming so soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it would have been difficult politically for Pelosi to do more to protest interrogation techniques the Bush administration was using.

“You have to remember, in the 2002 period, the whole atmospherics, it was all about scaring people every day,” said Elmendorf. “People were legitimately concerned that we were going to be attacked again, and there was a constant drumbeat coming from the Bush administration of, ‘Bad things could happen, bad things could happen.’ Nobody wants it to happen on their watch.”

Republicans have found a rare avenue of attack against Pelosi over the waterboarding briefing, at a time when the speaker is ramming through paradigm-shifting legislative proposals on behalf of the Obama administration. That grilling is likely to continue today when the speaker returns from a grueling weekend trip to Baghdad.

Still, Democrats are rallying to the speaker — and questioning the accuracy of the CIA’s description of its congressional briefings.

An aide to former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) took issue Monday with the entry for a Feb. 4, 2003, briefing in which a Rockefeller staffer was reportedly told “how the water board was used.”

“We are not in a position to vouch for the accuracy of the document,” a Rockefeller spokeswoman said. He “has repeatedly stated he was not told critical information that would have cast significant doubt on the program’s legality and effectiveness.”

Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time Pelosi was briefed, told The Washington Post’s PlumLine blog that he wasn’t told of waterboarding then, either — despite a Sept. 27, 2002, briefing entry indicating he was given details of Zubaydah’s interrogation.

“I do not have any recollection of being briefed on waterboarding or other forms of extraordinary interrogation techniques, or Abu Zubaydah being subjected to them,” said Graham, adding: “Something as unexpected and dramatic as that would be the kind of thing that you would normally expect to recall even years later.”

Even so, Democratic insiders acknowledge that Pelosi has not handled the media furor surrounding the interrogation briefings — and what she was told and when — in a timely or aggressive manner.

“I don’t know whether the story is overplayed or they’re misjudging it,” said a Democratic leadership aide. “I don’t know, maybe they haven’t been aggressive enough.”

This aide added: “I think they’re good at walking and chewing gum — that’s not the problem. I don’t think they recognized that this issue has the legs that it does.”

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=32281678-18FE-70B2-A8A73217F610D179
 

as for being a hillbilly.... well, lets just see where the "Torture" trials go from here. Me suspects the same place the idiotic global warming theory will become.... A Laughingstock Of Liberal Stupidit

Just read today Australia dropped plans for "cap and trade" (guess why?). Europe has so many exceptions in their "cap and trade scheme" that it doesn't make any difference (guess why?).

Our POTUS is a dogmatic imbecil so it will take a while before he figures out WHY.
But then again, so far, everything suggests that mullato never heard of the word COST.
 
"This aide added: “I think they’re good at walking and chewing gum — that’s not the problem. I don’t think they recognized that this issue has the legs that it does.” "

What he is trying to say is that Pelosi expected the democrats media allies to deep six any mention of her being briefed. Make it a non-story, like they have done embarrassing stuff for the Kennedys and Clintons over the years.
 
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