Wonkette
Nancy Pelosi reiterated during a press conference this morning that when she received a CIA briefing on “enhanced interrogations techniques” in the fall of 2002, she was not told about waterboarding, but she was told that everything else they were doing was LEGAL, backed by LEGAL OPINIONS. This contradicts a CIA memo released last week showing that Pelosi knew about waterboarding and loved it so much. Pelosi and the CIA are each calling each other terrible liars. They’re both right!
We just assumed that Nancy Pelosi was lying, because that’s what she does whenever she opens her mouth, and the whole point of the CIA is to lie about everything. To Pelosi’s credit, though, she still wants to see those old CIA briefings declassified, and she still wants a Truth Commission.
But to answer your question, Republican leaders: no, we do not care if Nancy Pelosi gets thrown in jail with the rest of ‘em, and take Harry Reid while you’re at it. (Seriously, just drum up charges on Harry Reid. No one will protest.) Although the case against Pelosi does seem slightly less powerful than the one against the people who drew up and authorized this program to get false intelligence about Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda’s connections…
IN SUM: Today’s press conference was clearly Nancy Pelosi’s “Sister Soulja moment on national security.”
There is only one to find out who is telling the truth…
waterboard ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out.
Isn’t having to spend time with Nancy Pelosi torture enough?
…that Pelosi knew about waterboarding and loved it so much.
Pelosi thought they meant wakeboarding, which everyone loves. “Those detainees get to be pulled along behind a motorboat and surf the boat’s wake?! I love this idea!”
Honestly! How can you expect an old lady like that to actually be paying attention.
WHOA WHOA WHOA harry reid is not going FUCKING ANYWHERE until we get our high-speed vegas train. period.
Facts of the case:
Nancy Pelosi personally waterboarded at least four thousand “enemy combatants” in a secret bunker underneath the Capitol Building.
She liked it a lot.
Obama is blocking the release of torture pictures because half of them prominently feature Nancy Pelosi in fatigues holding jumper cables to brown terrorist nipples.
OMG WE’RE ALL GOING TO JAIL FOR THIS SHIT.
Torture them all. Lindsey Graham, distinguished moron of the U.S. Senate, the most corrupt and moribund body of stinking rich losers in the whole wide world, says if you pretend to be earnestly all apeshit over something, that is the way to go.
Democrats are all Satanists, so Nancy is a witch and ol’ Harry is cowboy warlock. So it’ll work now just like it did 500 years ago according to Huckleberry.
We will use bottled Fiji water with anti-oxidants in it, so it will be not overly harsh. Only communists would be upset.
lmj: Hey, bearing false witness has worked for over 3,500 years, so why stop now?
The Bush rules for disclosure:
1. Tell everyone you inform that they’re not legally allowed to reveal or even discuss what you’ve done.
2. Announce that nobody’s complained about it.
I just love how the torture narrative is spinning:
1. WE DON’T TORTURE
2. Okay, we did some stuff, but it WASN’T TORTURE
3. Okay, we tortured, BUT IT WAS LEGAL
4. Okay, it might have been illegal, BUT IT WORKED
5. Okay, we tortured, it was illegal, and it didn’t work, BUT NANCY PELOSI MIGHT HAVE KNOWN ABOUT IT SO IT’S ALL THE DEMOCRAT SOCIALISTS’ FAULT.
Teh Stoopid. Dominating the 24-hour news cycle all over your ass.
Blender: summary WIN.
StephanieInCA: Us from Vegas want it too!
Yeah I claim both Vegas and Falls Church, so?
I will assume that Nancy Girl believed WaterBoard was an all-weather hairspray product similar to her heavily used ozone destructive brand.
On a lighter note, I smell shit. She and the rest of the finger waggers forgot the thing my dog was born knowing; don’t crap where you sleep and eat.
Nancy has the political noose tightening around her neck and pulling taught over that big oak branch. This is the wrong time to teeter around on the pointy toes of her no doubt exquisite pumps to find a better position.
BillyClubb: Even better, the detainees got to ride on a boat. Some of them rode dolphins, doin’ flips and shit. T-Pain was there.
SayItWithWookies: Your Bush rules for disclosure pretty much sum it up, but all snark aside, didn’t Nancy and anyone else who knew that laws were being broken have a duty to do something? Whatever they said about not being allowed to reveal the sick shit they were doing doesn’t supersede the constitution, which she took an oath to defend from all enemies foreign and domestic.
“Pelosi and the CIA are each calling each other terrible liars. They’re both right!”
How can anyone add to that?
What a planet…
BillyClubb: “Those detainees get to be pulled along behind a motorboat and surf the boat’s wake?! I love this idea!”
Maybe some nice tunes on the boombox, some Frisbee with their interrogators, a little halal BBQ, some lemonade, festive towels down on the grass for fulfilling the 5-times-day obligation w/o having to leave the lakeside, sounds great!
(Until they see the ‘bad cop’ side of their interrogations.)
Advocatus_Diaboli: Okay, it’s late 2002. The Republicans run the executive branch and both houses of Congress. The DOJ, CIA and (probably) the FBI are out. You’re not the head of any committee, so you can’t subpoena anyone. And if you go to the NYT and the government and the press finds out who did it, you get crucified as a traitor for helping our enemies in a time of war. Yeah, it’s strongly-worded-letter time. Very ineffectual, but what the hell else is there?
Blender: how is it that you can nail the narrative in 5 short points and all the journalists working in the best interests of the public seem all philosophical and confus………never mind.
Blender: You forgot #6.
It wasn’t torture because WE”RE THE UNITED STATES SO THERE.
Nancy is wearing Guantanamo Anal Beads around her neck.
Hardly defending Lady Drumstick here, but while Bush/Cheney were still in the WH, who would risk starting their car in the morning for the last time by getting between them and their evil (surely not a branch of government or the media)? Remember, we were either with them or against them, and Gitmo could be rough for a woman Nancy’s age.
Here’s the video of Pelosi’s “the CIA lied to me” comments:
http://www.gotchamediablog.com/2009/05/nancy-pelosi-accuses-cia-of-misleading.html
SayItWithWookies: I hear you, but skip forward to January 2007 and your now speaker of the house and your first official act is to take impeachment off the table. I have no sympathy for Pelosi. If she cared about anything but the speakership, she would have gone deep throat to the Times with this shit.
What about deepthroating until you gag? Is that torture now too, I suppose?
Potential alt-text: “and then I gave them noogies”
Advocatus_Diaboli: yelling bloody murder by Pelosi or by any one of the 4 individuals briefed to god knows what amount of the whole story would’ve constituted a breach of national security to those holding the reins, so it seems to me like she was fucked either way…
…as pointed out by chewy
And if you go to the NYT and the government and the press finds out who did it, you get crucified as a traitor for helping our enemies in a time of war. Yeah, it’s strongly-worded-letter time. Very ineffectual, but what the hell else is there?
Advocatus_Diaboli: Agreed that impeachment off the table was ridiculous. To look optimistically at it, though, I do think the popular outcry is going to make criminal charges against at least some of the perpetrators inevitable. Dubya may be immune (here, though not in Spain) but if it goes up to Cheney and Rumsfeld I’ll be moderately happy.
mitchcumstein: well, then be fucked either way but possibly prevent or at least slow down Cheney’s mad dash to the dark side. Have some ethics. Think about something besides the next election. I know, I’m living in a fantasy world wishing that dems were better than just the lesser of two evils. Fuck Pelosi. She can take her place right next to Cheney in whatever circle of hell can be imagined for them.
I’m sure Burris also approved of waterboarding. And Blagovich. Can we send them to G-bay now too?
SayItWithWookies: “Dubya may be immune (here, though not in Spain) but if it goes up to Cheney and Rumsfeld I’ll be moderately happy.”
Yes, I agree that may be as high as it ever goes (and that would be cathartic), but the dems who enabled this ought not be protected. As far as w’s immunity, doesn’t Texas law allow for punishing retards?
Mr Blifil: Only if you think you’re going to die. Most times you probably just *want* to die.
Advocatus_Diaboli: Granted, the ethical thing to do would’ve been to blow the lid off the entire thing consequences be damned, but all any of them are really interested in is getting reelected…cynical in DC
Sorry I forgot that Senators are dipso alkies winos gin sumps and heavy boozers. They do have a few points in their favor.
True, they R doing it rong, so they are all wrecked from drinking.
An awful lot of mean drunks in that there pissant worthless Senate, though.
Advocatus_Diaboli: There’s also no stipulation that a president can’t be impeached after he’s left office, so there’s that route, although Congress would have to be willing to be tied up for the months that would take. I’d settle for a nice long life with his former coworkers in jail and Dubya finally seeing history’s verdict congeal around him. Of course the dumb bastard’s probably going to get Alzheimer’s and die believing he’s a drooling five-year-old and I’ll just be forced to pee on his grave for satisfaction.
If the torture was legal, as the pubs claim, why does it matter if Pelosi knew? Thats sort of like a speeder claiming innocence, and then saying, but my passenger knew, so he should get a ticket too.
As many have pointed out, Pelosi lost any potential allies on the left when she unilaterally took impeachment off the table. She can stew in her own juices now. Maybe her personal ass licker Steny will speak on her behalf. Those that remember her enabling won’t.
StephanieInCA: I don’t think it’s going to D.C. but if anyone is left in CA in ten years, we’ll send you pictures.
But I gotta tell ya, no woman in DC looks better denying her involvement in torture than Nancy Pelosi. Without all her husband’s munnies she’d probably look like some Baltimore frump, but with it — those St. John’s suits, that hair. Wow. I’m gay and all, but her stylist deserves a monster raise.
What I Think Congresswoman Nancy Pelocy Should Say About Torture
from my blog: http://indiecognition.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/what-i-think-congresswoman-nancy-pelocy-should-say-about-torture/
I am granting this article an open-source copyright, including
free use without attribution.
I believe that Madame Speaker stands strongly and authentically
against the practice of torture on an ethical basis, and rejects
“Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” authorized by the Bush
administration because of the potential harm they bring to national
security and America’s standing in the world. If I was in a position
to advise Pelosi regarding her public statements today, here is what I
would suggest saying:
“The interrogation strategies used by the Bush Administration — which
turned its back on bipartisan cooperation and collaboration and mocked
opposing views as “unpatriotic” — were part of a highly classified set
of policies and materials which members of Congress and the House
Intelligence Committee were not in a position to expose or comment on
publicly — and were not included in the process of deciding and
formally approving policy, even in the few cases where we were fully
and openly briefed at all. Under Bush Administration policies members
of the House Intelligence Committee were simply informed that lawyers
in the Department of Justice, hand-picked by Alberto Gonzales to give
Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld carte blanche approval for any of their
flawed and failed policies, had approved some vague idea of “Enhanced
Interrogation Techniques.” While we had suspicions that the Bush
Administration may indeed have authorized and directed torture in
violation of the Geneva Convention, we were never told what, when, to
whom, or under which circumstances these illegal interrogation
techniques could or would be used.
“Torture, including waterboarding, is inhumane, unethical, illegal,
and unacceptable. However even our strongest objections to the
policies forced into place by the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld triad could not
be made public; because despite our disagreement and abhorrence with
the potential for violation of human rights, or even war crimes
outlawed in the Geneva Convention, we could not just breech security
protocol to rush a debate in order to eliminate any policies that the
Administration had put in place which might have opened the door to
torture. The interrogation practices in question were entangled with
larger strategies and policies that Bush and Cheney claimed were in
the interest of Homeland Security and anti-terrorism, and to bring the
full content and specifics to public attention would have put the
mission and lives of our servicemen and women in the Armed Forces into
jeopardy.
“However, within Congressional protocol and federal law regarding
classified information, I along with other Democratic leaders and even
many concerned Republicans used every avenue open to us to push for
the elimination of these practices which are downright un-American. I
could not reveal classified information to the public in an argument
against the Bush Administration’s policies. However, I consistently
stood up and universally rejected the prior administration’s potential
use of torture, and have done everything in my power to push these
policies into debate so that we may be fully briefed into the actual
interrogation practices authorized and–God forbid–used under Bush and
Cheney.
“We are doing everything we can to fix the mess Bush and Cheney left
America to deal with after the people overwhelmingly rejected the
flawed and unethical policies of the last 8 years. Today, President
Obama has begun the process of opening up formerly-classified
information to our full attention. We must now institute a bipartisan
commission to investigate the actual techniques approved practiced by
the Bush Administration, and if and when illegal techniques may have
been used. The commission must have the latitude and power to make
their decision based on complete information, so that it can bring to
light exactly who decided, formally authorized, or knew the complete
range of interrogation tactics used under the Bush Administration.
Once everything is known about the details and extent of ethical and
legal violations that may have been committed under the previous
administration, it is even possible that we will be able to prosecute
those responsible for potential war crimes, if that is what is
necessary to bring justice. At this time, however, I can not comment
on my opinions regarding prosecution.
“President Obama is also working with us in Congress (not against us
the way Bush and Cheney turned their back on the balance of power and
the Constitution) to restore our security policies to truly protect
the American people, while once again respecting human dignity for
people around the world. Doing so will not only make America safer and
more secure than we were under Bush/Cheney policies, but will also
restore our strength and standing in the international community.”
Bob Graham is OCD about note taking. Check teh wiki. The CIA report that everyone is having a pelosigasm about said that they briefed Bob Graham 4 times.
Graham said that when he asked the CIA when he had been briefed on the program, the CIA gave him the dates of four briefings, two in April 2002 and two in September 2002, when they claimed they had briefed him about the program. But after Graham consulted his own records, he pointed out that on two of those dates, he had not attended any briefing. After Graham pointed this out to the CIA, they conceded their own dates were incorrect.
Oops.
Tenet is a liar.
In his book, At the Center of the Storm, released April 2007, Tenet writes in the memoir, “Let me say it again. CIA found absolutely no linkage between Saddam and 9/11.”
Yet, in a written statement released Oct. 7, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet said “[The CIA possesses] solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade.”
On June 03, 2004 Nancy Pelosi, a 10-year veteran of the Intelligence Committee, released the following statement today on the resignation of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director George Tenet:
“George Tenet is a valued public servant who has made many significant contributions to the work of the intelligence community, but apparently he believes it is time for a change in leadership.
“There certainly were intelligence failures in the Iraq operation, particularly in the months preceding the invasion. There have been many other failures as well; I do not believe his resignation should be the only response to those failures.”
Okay, Lindsay Graham says 500 years of experience shows waterboarding has worked.
If you follow his reasoning, Senator Graham’s logic depends on folks being guilty of witchcraft.