May 15, 2009

5/15: We Want The Truth!

Like the rest of the political world, the blogosphere is buzzing about Speaker Nancy Pelosi's press conference -- particularly her claim that the CIA officials who briefed her in '02 gave her "inaccurate and incomplete information" about their use of waterboarding. Conservative bloggers are blasting Pelosi's assertions and speculating that House Dems will try to dump her as Speaker. Liberal bloggers, on the other hand, reacted to Pelosi's press conference by repeating their calls for an independent "Truth Commission" to investigate the CIA's use of harsh interrogation methods. Lefty bloggers don't care whether such an investigation implicates Pelosi and other congressional Dems; they simply want to "get to the bottom of this". Interestingly, several conservative bloggers are joining their liberal counterparts in calling for an investigation, as they're convinced that it will "will reveal...that [enhanced interrogation techniques] were used only in specific circumstances and for the most part helped save American lives."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Benen, Wheeler, Lewison, Llorens) are buzzing about ex-Colin Powell aide Lawrence Wilkerson's allegation that ex-VP Dick Cheney authorized brutal interrogation techniques in order to find a "smoking gun" linking Iraq and al Qaeda.
• Liberal bloggers (Clawson, Singer, Sudbay) are buzzing about reports that the FBI is investigating ex-Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) over allegations that a wealthy donor "paid for suits and other items for Coleman and his wife, Laurie [Coleman], at Nieman Marcus in Minneapolis."
• Liberal bloggers (Lewison, Yglesias, Kleiman, Benen) are criticizing AR state Sen. Kim Hendren (R), the only announced GOP challenger to Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), for referring to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as "that Jew."
• Conservative bloggers (Hinderaker, Bandes, Klein) are buzzing about a new Gallup poll which found that more Americans call themselves "pro-life" than "pro-choice" for the first time since '95.

PELOSI: We're Not Buying It, Nancy

Conservatives are criticizing the claims that Pelosi made during yesterday's press conference:

• Michelle Malkin: "If Pelosi were so incensed about how the CIA misled her, why wasn't this her response to news of the 2002 briefing a week ago?"
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "If the CIA lied to Nancy Pelosi in that 2002 briefing about interrogation tactics, why is she only objecting now? Reports on the use of waterboarding surfaced in 2004 and 2005. Presuming her claim is true, once the reports came to light, shouldn't she have recognized that the briefing had been a lie? The CIA is making false reports to Congress, and she waits four or five years to object?"
• RedState's Brian Faughnan: "Speaker Pelosi claims that the CIA lied to her about its handling of terrorist detainees held by the United States. She claims not to have been informed about the methods being used to get information from prisoners. Obviously, this is almost certainly false. Why would the CIA have informed other lawmakers about interrogation methods, but not Pelosi? But even if we take her at her word, another problem arises. Pelosi does not dispute that she learned about waterboarding no later than early 2003, when her intelligence staff attended a CIA briefing where it was discussed. Since she learned about waterboarding no less than 6 years ago, she had ample opportunity to register objections without disclosing any secrets to the public. That's because the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence -- on which Pelosi served as the senior Democrat in 2002 -- conducts closed hearings on sensitive topics, to hear testimony from intelligence community officials. Further, House rules specify a procedure by which Representatives can force a debate on sensitive intelligence matters in a closed session. The most recent such session was in 2008; if Pelosi was so concerned about 'torture,' why did she not attempt to force a closed session to discuss it?"
• Commentary's Peter Wehner: "Accusing America's intelligence agency of knowingly misleading a Member of Congress, and particularly a Member of the House Intelligence Committee, is quite an explosive charge. She better be able to prove it. And if she is lying -- as Porter Goss, then ranking Republican on the House Committee who later served as C.I.A. Director, seems to believe -- there will be an enormously high price for her to pay. There is another thing Pelosi said that needs to be stressed as well: she concedes in her remarks today that Michael Sheehy, a top aide, informed her about waterboarding. In other words, Ms. Pelosi did learn about waterboarding no later than February 2003, according to her own account -- and she didn't do anything about it."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "Even if it's true that the CIA told [Pelosi] in 2002 that they were only thinking of using the [waterboarding] technique, the very thought of it should have ignited her righteous progressive outrage. Instead, her defense here -- I kid you not -- is that by the time she learned they were waterboarding people in 2003, Jane Harman had become the ranking member on the intelligence committee and so, you know, it wasn't Nan's job anymore to speak up. Besides, she was too focused at the time on the big Democratic electoral turnaround...which wouldn't happen for another three years."

PELOSI II: Time For Her To Go?

Some conservative bloggers are speculating that House Dems will dump Pelosi as Speaker:

• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "I don't suppose anyone imagines that the CIA was foolish enough to lie to Pelosi and others about the use of waterboarding. On the contrary, it seems obvious that everyone in the chain of command was covering himself or herself by disseminating information about the harsh interrogations of three al Qaeda leaders. Pelosi has now opened the lid on a box that she will not be able to close. The CIA has no choice but to defend itself by demonstrating that she, not the Agency, is lying. Possibly [CIA dir.] Leon Panetta can save her, but at the moment, it is hard to see how this affair can end with Pelosi remaining as Speaker of the House."
• NRO's Jonah Goldberg: "Well, it seems increasingly plausible that there can be no 'truth commission' without Nancy Pelosi's resignation. The dynamic reminds me of the tectonic pressures against Rep. Bob Livingston during the [Bill] Clinton impeachment. It was impossible to impeach Clinton and keep Livingston in as Speaker-to-be, because Livingston's own adultery had been exposed. (Of course, some would argue, like myself, that Clinton's behavior wasn't merely about adultery). Livingston understood that the rank-and-file were committed to impeachment, so he got out of the way (a move the Clinton White House begged Livingston not to make). It remains to be seen whether the rank and file of the Dems are equally committed to some kind of truth commission/anti-[George W.] Bush witch hunt, but if they are, Nancy Pelosi stands in their way."
• Allahpundit: "Why don't the Democrats dump Pelosi? Not now, I mean -- there'll have to be some hard proof from the CIA first that she is indeed the pathetic liar the whole country suspects her of being -- but assuming that proof is adduced, why not toss her overboard then? The right hates her, the left doesn't really trust her, and there's a perfectly capable back-up waiting in Steny Hoyer. [...] If they're serious about passing epochal legislation this year like health care, don't they want someone in charge who's friendly with Republicans and can woo GOP votes to provide the Dems with a little political cover? To put it another way, what exactly has Pelosi accomplished lately for the left that Hoyer wouldn't? One day she's on TV dumping on the CIA, the next day she's pushing for torture 'truth commissions' that'll blow up in Pres. Obama's face. She's more of a liability than an asset. Assuming she's guilty of having endorsed waterboarding back in the day -- which, according to Andy McCarthy, by the left's own logic could amount to a criminal conspiracy -- there's the pretext for Obama and [Senate Maj. Leader Harry] Reid to invite her to the White House for a 'talk.'"
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Will Democrats insist that [Pelosi] step down from the Speaker's seat? Like Allahpundit, I'm not sure what Pelosi gets them in a Democratic administration, especially one that wants to pose as a post-partisan White House. Pelosi may be an attack dog, but they don't need one any more, not with a 78-vote margin. Steny Hoyer would make a better Speaker for this period, one that has a track record of bipartisan engagement -- and one that has his credibility intact. Had this never come up, no one would have thought replacing Pelosi worth the trouble, but she's kneecapped herself and made it extraordinarily difficult for her party to press forward with a review of interrogations on their own terms. I wouldn't predict her ouster, but it wouldn't surprise me, either."

PELOSI III: Can We Please Have A Truth Commission Now?

Most liberal bloggers reacted to Pelosi's press conference by repeating their calls for an independent "Truth Commission" to investigate the CIA's use of harsh interrogation methods:

• Obsidian Wings' publius: "If the Republicans are so very anxious to find out about what Pelosi knew, why not ask them to support a truth commission on torture and detention to get to the bottom of this?"
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "So if the Democrats want a truth commission, and the Republicans and Dick Cheney want a truth commission, why can't we order up a double order of truth commission? Am I missing something here? Didn't [MI Rep.] Pete Hoekstra signal interest in this last week? Make it happen."
• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "All of the briefing materials should be declassified and released so that we can finally put to rest the game of what Democrat knew what when. Pelosi's, [ex-FL Sen. Bob] Graham's, and [WV Sen. Jay] Rockefeller's stories remain consistent -- remarkably so considering that they were never briefed at the same time. The Democrats in Congress were not responsible for conceiving of or implementing the Bush torture regime. But we need to know what they knew, and when, and what they did or didn't do about it. The horrors of the Bush administration didn't happen in a vacuum. Strike that -- they did happen in a vacuum, a vacuum created by the nearly complete failure of Congress to actually do its job. So Congressional leaders can't be let off the hook either, until we know what happened."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "The whole point of this storm about Pelosi is that her critics want her to be embarrassed and stop supporting a Truth Commission or any sort of examination of what happened. But she's not. She still says there should be an investigation. Her critics still want the book closed. That says it all. She'll have to stand or fall with the results of an actual investigation. Her opponents on this are simply risible hypocrites."

Several conservative bloggers are joining their liberal counterparts in calling for a "Truth Commission":

• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "Given Speaker Pelosi's remarkable accusations of being misled both by the CIA and the Bush administration, it strikes me that a full investigation is in order. And that includes full disclosure of the kind of information that the EIT's elicited. As contentious as such hearings are bound to be, having Congress tied in knots over this matter is far superior to leaving the Democrats unoccupied enough that they're easily able to ruin the health care system through their efforts at 'reform.' [...] What's more, Republicans only have reason to fear such hearings if they suspect that the Bush administration or the CIA tortured gratuitously. I believe that the facts will reveal that this was not the case -- that EIT's were used only in specific circumstances and for the most part helped save American lives."
• RedState's Mark Impomeni: "Under these circumstances, and with adversaries this pathetic, Republicans should welcome Nancy Pelosi's truth commission. Half of the commission's time will be spent trying to untie Pelosi from her own statements about what she knew and when. That's a bargain Republicans should be willing to take. And the American people will get a fuller picture both of the lives that were saved by enhanced interrogations, and of the Democrats' willingness to say and do anything to gain power."

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan: "The notion that dealing with this can somehow be put off without a commission does not seem to make sense to me. By not setting up a commission, Obama will ensure that this stuff is hashed out in partisan fashion in ways that cannot provide the proper context."

PELOSI IV: Stop Making This About Her

Some liberal bloggers are annoyed that Pelosi has become the focus of the torture controversy instead of the Bush officials who authorized these controversial interrogation techniques:

• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "[T]he details aside, I think the big picture is pretty clear -- Pelosi and other congressional Democrats weren't exactly profiles in courage on this stuff, but insofar as you want to ding them for not objecting forcefully enough to what the Bush administration was doing, you obviously need to ding the people actually doing the doing with more severity."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "In general, I find the interest in what Pelosi knew and when to be something of a distraction. [...] I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Pelosi was less than forceful in pushing back in 2002 and 2003, serving at the time as House Minority Leader. Maybe the briefings she received at the time were deliberately vague, and the CIA -- which had a strong incentive to play fast and loose with the details -- chose to keep lawmakers in the dark a bit. Maybe Pelosi was glad. Maybe both. But I'm curious, why is Pelosi the one hosting press conferences and being peppered with questions, while those who were actually responsible for the torture have precious little to say?"
• Oliver Willis: "My guess? Speaker Pelosi is, at best, being misleading about what the CIA did and didn't tell her. In all likelihood? She's probably lying. But does it really matter? [...] George Bush authorized the torture of people, and while the congress turned a blind eye to it and authorized it and deserves some of the blame for it, it is Bush and his henchmen who committed the act itself. I feel its probably likely that Speaker Pelosi was an accessory to these acts, but George W. Bush was the trigger man."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Price Of Prosecutions

Sullivan posts a letter from a reader who explains why Obama is opposed to prosecuting Bush officials:

"Imagine what such prosecutions would entail: years of courtroom drama, depositions, lawsuits and counter-suits; the long parade of powerful and high ranking ex- and current members of government, including a goodly number of Democrats, being called on the carpet and having to testify against one another; the enormous rancor and bitterness. This would be Watergate on steroids. And imagine the shot in the arm this would give the zombified [Rush] Limbaugh Right.

The prosecutions you are asking for would simply swallow the Obama presidency whole. It is the kind of energy draining, oxygen consuming drama that is the nightmare of every president. It would come to define his presidency in the same way the Hostage Crisis defined [Jimmy] Carter's and there is zero chance he will opt for this.

President Obama is making a realistic, cold, clear-eyed cost-benefit analysis. This is the choice: Does he fix the economy, fix healthcare, get a handle on the two wars he's dealing with, or does he prosecute Bush era war crimes? He has chosen his agenda and is asking us to choose that to."

LEST WE FORGET: It Is Now

From Overheard in the Office:

Office mate #1: My brother's girlfriend brought dinner over last night.
Office mate #2: Is it weird -- since you guys are twins -- that your brother's girlfriend knows exactly what you look like naked?

Posted by Ian Faerstein at May 15, 2009 01:05 PM