That's besides being a traitor.
Pablo Pelosi said, “In that or any other briefing…we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used.”
Multiple sources, including recently released Senate committe reports and the Washington Post, say Pablo Pelosi was among Senators briefed on all aspects of CIA methods of attaining information from terrorist suspects - on multiple occasions.
But Pablo Pelosi says this never happened. According to a Rasmussen Report poll released in late March (which I blogged about), House Speaker Pablo Pelosi’s popularity has fallen to a new low for the year, with 60 percent of likely voters now viewing her unfavorably.
With such a plunge in her popularity - I mean, it would be a career-killer to admit she was privy to CIA interrogation methods, right?
i'm not a big fan of pelosi, jeff.
ReplyDeletebut i find it sort of typical that you got something completely different out of her "denial."
i clearly heard (from her entire statement on the matter, not the truncated version you've included in your post) that she WAS briefed that things like waterboarding were on the table, but that if they were ever actually going to be utilized, the proper committees would be notified.
that's much different than suggesting, as you have, that she's lied about the whole deal. like she's claiming she was never in those briefings. your suggesting that she was among the senators briefed about interrogation methods and torture doesn't negate her statement.
again. not a big fan of pelosi. i'm sure you think this "defense" of her is parsing words, and it may be. and if she approved this crap, she should be prosecuted too.
we're debating technicalities about torture, here. nazi stuff. whether or not it worked, who was told. not if we should or shouldn't do it.
that answer is pretty clear. for me, at least.
that's not what i got from the article. the politicians were told specifically what had been done and what would be done - and waterboarding had already been done to one prisoner.
ReplyDeleteit's doublespeak. splitting hairs. bullshit. all politician suck. they're all crooks. and she's proved she's one of the biggest (falling approval ratings). anyone who refers to the ICE as "un-American"....she could refer to me as "the caucasion Mr. Ircink with one good eye" and i wouldn't believe her.
what does "truncated" mean? :) are we on for tomorrow??
"typical"? i guess it comes down to where one gets their information from, tony. i could say the same thing about your viewpoints, no?
ReplyDeletethat's why i included the link to the sources, so people could read the entire article. i stated exactly what was in the article; i didn't reprint the whole thing.
in a perfect world, no - i don't approve of torture. the world of Spy versus Spy is far from a perfect world. the shit that happens that we don't hear about would make our skin crawl.
but we can't have our cake and eat it too. like the blogger "wild sheep chasing" stated (is that the name?),
"I am aware and grateful that there are hard men of great moral flexibility who do things in dark and dangerous places for my country that I would not condone...Yes, I am asking them to walk the line, and when they feel it is necessary, break the law and suffer the consequences if they are caught. What they must do, they must do without that cover, or else we are all guilty of their actions."
than "wild sheep chasing" says, "I refuse to be a party to torture. Full stop. Period."
THAT'S hypocritical.
it does all depend on where you get your information from, yes.
ReplyDeleteyour linking to alex jones.this is a guy who thinks 9/11 was an inside job. a guy who thinks airplane contrails overhead are a giant biomedical experiment. a guy who thinks wall street engineered the economic collapse. a guy who has made serious comparisons between barack obama and hitler. a guy who is convinced that barack obama is using mind control and hypnosis during his speeches to the country. a guy whose website suggests that acceptance of homosexuality could signal the beginning of america's ultimate demise.
this is a guy that richard poplawski turned to regularly.
this is who you're putting forward as your "source."
oh, and here's the rest of that pelosi quote:
"at that, or any other briefing, – and that was the only briefing that i was 'briefed on' in that regard – we were not, and i repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used. what they did tell us is that they had some 'office of legislative council' opinions that they could be used, but not that they would, and further the point was that if and when they would be used they would brief congress at that time."she goes on. it's all right here.and like her or not, "falling approval ratings" does not a crook make.
Is this a private party or can anybody join in?
ReplyDeleteI think Madame Speaker is lying.
I love the way Jeff can careen from ad hominem attack to false analogy and back again in the space of one post, sometimes within one paragraph.
I think referring to popularity ratings in the course of a discussion about torture is astonishing.
I think if Madame Speaker thought they would brief her and/or Congress in the course of their execution of the "war on terror" that she is guilty of willful delusion and dereliction of her duty to uphold the powers of the Legislative branch, as are many others with the possible and notable exception of Mr. Feingold.
I think that this kind of seeping responsibility for the authorization and use of torture is exactly why Mr. President initially indicated he would let this matter lay. There are too many people who knew too much and did too little during this time period of this matter not to result in 'friendly fire' casualties, from a partisan viewpoint.
As far as being hypocritical, I'll take responsiblity for my poor prose. My point regarding hard men and refusal to be a part of it, while acknowleding (and even appreciating their actions was as follows: I ask an incredibly high price from those hard men of moral flexibility. I refuse to give them the cover of law if they decide to torture; yet I expect them to protect me. I say to them, "Do not torture. I will not be a party to that. I know that it happens, but I will disavow you if you do it to protect me."
To use a metaphor that the rightists seem to like, if you torture the guy to get information on how to find the "ticking time bomb", I'm going to be grateful for the information (let's assume it was timely and accurate -- a HUGE assumption in cases of torture), but I'm still going to toss your ass in jail for torturing the guy.
Personally, I'd be willing to go to jail if I felt it would save the country. Why do these guys insist on getting legal immunity? If a Marine is willing to die for his country, why can't we ask the CIA to go to prison for their country if they "just follow orders" that are illegal?
And as far as rhetoric goes, calling out the other guy's source as a nutcase is just pointing out an appeal to authority fallacy; but that cuts both ways. For every Alex Jones, there is a Seymour Hersch to tear down, as Jeff rightly points out.
I, for one, am getting a lot of mileage out of Kos, which is putting together some interesting time lines to consider in this matter, as well as taking allowing some of its contributors to sound off on the moral outrage platform in compelling ways that transcend party politics, which I think is what Tony was trying to get to with his "debating technicalities" point.
I for one am more than willing to throw Pelosi under the bus if it helps clean the national conscience of this dark matter.
mmm...even for all his conspiracies and craziness and flaws, i'll put a seymour hersh article published in the new yorker up against alex jones anyday.
ReplyDeletewait a second, tony. i linked Alex Jones - who linked the Washington Post (and The Huffington Post). aren't you splitting hairs here?
ReplyDeletechristopher the sheep, welcome. are you the author from Wild Sheep Chasing??
in reference to your comment about mentioning popularity ratings and torture in the same argument - it IS astonishing, you're right. so it should make perfect sense to tie the two together because the only thing that's important to most politicians is re-election. Pelosi is calls Federal agencies "un-American", calls illegal aliens "patriots", and voted down E-verify - and you think i'm gonna believe ANYTHING she says, including not knowing dick about interrogation techniques? 25 plus meetings and she didn't know they were actually going to use them? come on....MULTIPLE sources (not just alex jones, tony) make the same claims. you really think Pelosi is going to say, "yeh, i knew about this all along" when the Obama admin. is contemplating prosecuting for this? the Speaker of the House? right.
where's my bucket of water. i'll get the truth out of her....
i just read Pelosi's entire press conference. she told me nothing but she babbled a lot. for such an importand person, she's not BRIEFED much, is she?
ReplyDeleteyou're absolutely right jeff, he does link to huffington and the washington post.
ReplyDeletebut just like you can't believe anything pelosi says because of the lies she's told in the past, i find anything to be taken from jones to be suspect as well. i mean, maybe it's just those zombie rays comin' out of obama's eyes that got to me.
the overall picture here is one friend trying to rescue another from slipping further and further away into grumpiness, isolation and right-wingery. i couldn't care less about pelosi. like i said, if she was complicit, she should go. what sort of frightens me is that i wouldn't be surprised, friend, if you're getting much of your information from alex jones, newsmax, fox, rush, hannity, etc. sure, i watch olbermann and maddow. but i also watch the other side. i don't think frank rich is an idiot. a blowhard, sometimes, but lots of times i agree with him.
i don't think they're all crooks. i can't be that cynical. i know a few folks in local government and i know them to be honest and upright, and to fight for what they believe.
and i trust obama.
i don't think i'm naive. but i also know that i have to put my trust in someone or life would be pretty black to me.
christopher, i understand about things that need to be done that i don't want to know about it. i'm just not there.
what's sad in all of this, to me, is the pelosi's mouse example. taking one tiny tidbit of information, finding a catch phrase, feeding it to the public as though it's truth, not telling the entire story, and then repeating it over and over again. like, 'iraq has wmd'. we all do it. i'm sure i do too. but we deserve better. in this age, though, we can all find any "authority" anywhere online to back up whatever claim we want to make.
i'm a liberal democrat. and proud of it. when someone is in need, i want to help them. that's pretty much it. i don't think we need assault rifles to go hunting, or to protect ourselves. i don't think my relationship threatens anyone elses. i'm willing to pay higher taxes if it means better roads, nicer parks, better schools. i don't want government tell a woman what to do with her body. i don't want to us to execute people because they committed crimes, no matter how horrible. i don't think we should allow illegal immigrants a free pass, but i have yet to hear any reasonable plan to "round them all up and ship them back to mexico."
nearly every stand i see the opposing party take (nearly) i find myself disagreeing with, almost viscerally. that's not learned, it's not brainwashing, it's in me. some of my views have shifted over the years, slightly. but overall, i'm the same person i was 10, 20, 30 years ago.