I sooooo called it!!
Did you see Maddow interview Pelosi?
Well, I never wrote about it in my LJ, but Rob can validate for my long standing belief regarding this issue. I've long felt that Nancy Pelosi's "impeachment is off the table" stance was in large a way of Nancy Pelosi covering her own ass. If impeachment proceedings were to have gone through, a lot of attention would have been going toward issues like US attorney firings, lying about pre-war intelligence, no bid contracts for campaign contributing war profiteers, warrantless wiretapping... any grocery list of issues the administration is probably guilty of, but nothing would concern Nancy Pelosi more than the torture issue, because as it turned out Nancy Pelosi was serving on the House Intelligence Committee in 2002 when the CIA briefed them on the euphemistically protected torture methods (i.e. "enhanced interrogations"). This became news in December 2007 and January 2008, which would have been even bigger had congress and the rest of the nation not been so concerned about steroid use in baseball.
There is a problem here with Pelosi's stance on things, and I'm conflicted. If the senate gets their truth commission, and it is true that such a commission will provide immunity to crimes admitted to under the commission, and those people go free... well, that's a problem, but at least the potential lies in which we know the truth. Though, if the truth commission is stopped, there's still the potential that criminal investigations can take place and those responsible are held accountable... but then that's just a matter of "will that ever happen?". And considering the potential that many senior ranking officials in Congress, including Democrats, knew about and were complicit in some of these crimes, there's a big conflict of interest in whether they bring themselves to be held accountable.
At the very least, and I'm glad Maddow brings this up, is now Pelosi is on record saying she was never briefed about their torture-interrogation methods... though, there's a special way of lying where things don't really matter. Like if they find out she lied about this, this will only be known if it is investigated, and if it's found out she was briefed on the enhanced interrogations (i.e. torture), and that she was complicit in approving such methods, it's not really going to matter that she lied about it, because now she has to worry about the fallout of being caught approving torture, and all the lying did was buy her some time.
Click to viewWell, I never wrote about it in my LJ, but Rob can validate for my long standing belief regarding this issue. I've long felt that Nancy Pelosi's "impeachment is off the table" stance was in large a way of Nancy Pelosi covering her own ass. If impeachment proceedings were to have gone through, a lot of attention would have been going toward issues like US attorney firings, lying about pre-war intelligence, no bid contracts for campaign contributing war profiteers, warrantless wiretapping... any grocery list of issues the administration is probably guilty of, but nothing would concern Nancy Pelosi more than the torture issue, because as it turned out Nancy Pelosi was serving on the House Intelligence Committee in 2002 when the CIA briefed them on the euphemistically protected torture methods (i.e. "enhanced interrogations"). This became news in December 2007 and January 2008, which would have been even bigger had congress and the rest of the nation not been so concerned about steroid use in baseball.
There is a problem here with Pelosi's stance on things, and I'm conflicted. If the senate gets their truth commission, and it is true that such a commission will provide immunity to crimes admitted to under the commission, and those people go free... well, that's a problem, but at least the potential lies in which we know the truth. Though, if the truth commission is stopped, there's still the potential that criminal investigations can take place and those responsible are held accountable... but then that's just a matter of "will that ever happen?". And considering the potential that many senior ranking officials in Congress, including Democrats, knew about and were complicit in some of these crimes, there's a big conflict of interest in whether they bring themselves to be held accountable.
At the very least, and I'm glad Maddow brings this up, is now Pelosi is on record saying she was never briefed about their torture-interrogation methods... though, there's a special way of lying where things don't really matter. Like if they find out she lied about this, this will only be known if it is investigated, and if it's found out she was briefed on the enhanced interrogations (i.e. torture), and that she was complicit in approving such methods, it's not really going to matter that she lied about it, because now she has to worry about the fallout of being caught approving torture, and all the lying did was buy her some time.