Bob Graham Says He Was Misled In Briefings
Nancy Pelosi’s allegations that she was misled by the Bush administration in the secret, you-can’t-discuss-this-with-anyone, briefings she was treated to as the ranking House Democrat on the Intelligence Committee has taken the torture debate to a new level. Greg Sargent has former Senator Bob Graham, who was Pelosi’s opposite number on Senate Intelligence, saying something similar:
Former Senator Bob Graham, who received a classified briefing on terror detainees during the same month in the fall of 2002 as Nancy Pelosi, was not briefed about the use of either waterboarding or enhanced interrogation techniques during the meeting, he claimed in an interview with me.
Graham’s assertion — his first public comments since the release of the intelligence document detailing torture briefings given to members of Congress — directly contradicts the document’s claim that he had been briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques, or EITs. Graham is now the second Dem official to deny on the record the document’s contents and raises questions about its claim that Pelosi had been told, which she has denied.
You can see more along these lines from the award-winning Marcy Wheeler.
Can I say that in a larger sense I think the idea that congressional oversight can be established by briefing a number of members of congress that you can count on one hand seems a bit absurd on its face. The government sometimes needs to do something in secret. But if the reasons for keeping it secret are sufficiently un-compelling that operational security requires it to be kept secret from members of congress then that sounds a lot more like a cover-up than a legitimate national security concern.
80 Responses to “Bob Graham Says He Was Misled In Briefings”
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May 14th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
It’s also increasingly clear that Cheney was down and dirty on all this.
Remember Jay Rockefeller’s letter to Man-Sized Safe on warrantless surveillance?
May 14th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
This makes no sense. An uninformed Congress would be livid and order investigation after investigation.
Congressional behavior fits more with complicity than duped. If Congress was mushroomed, they are jellyfish mushrooms. Not a danged spine in the crowd.
May 14th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
It really ticks me off that some people seem to think that it is OK for the executive branch to break the law as long as it tells congress. If the president wants to do something that is currently illegal he is supposed to have to get congress to change the law. Nobody, not even Pelosi can give the president permission to break the law.
May 14th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Alan:
Why would they be livid? Congress in uninformed about a lot of things. Why do you think they depend on lobbyists so much. Also, remember, Graham was the one who told Hillary to read the Iraq NIE(which made him vote against the Iraq war). And she didn’t take his advice, which in the end cost her the Presidency.
May 14th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
If what Pelosi said was true, that she was misled, why wasn’t that her first story? Instead, it was her fourth story. Keep twisting people, funny stuff. Pelosi lied, terrorist, um, got wet!
May 14th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
judd, you think your talking points mean something, but they don’t. The fact is that the Bush administration tried to justify and then ordered the commission of torture. The funnier thing is that Republicans rushed to the defense of Bush when this happened, thus proving they’re the morally demented toadies we’ve always beleived they are.
In fact, it’s generally a symptom of your moral dementia that made you a Republican in the first place, and why they have to be kept out of positions of power for the good of the nation. And their support for torture is how I know they’re generally full of crap. The CIA authorized torture. Then they lied about what they did and what they said in a generally feeble effort to defend themselves. And a bunch of mindless republican todies mindlessly followed along with the talking points because they’ve rejected God in favor of Limbaugh and Hannity’s talking points.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Remember when Cheney called up Graham and told him that Congress leaked and that therefore the Administration couldn’t trust Congress and they were going to announce it to the American people? Then Ari Fleischer proceeded to do just that.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/05/11/graham-corroborates-pelosi/
May 14th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Maybe politicians looking to avoid shifting sands of public opinion wouldn’t be livid about being lied to or lied about, but leaders expecting the Executive Department to follow Congress enacted laws and treaties would be rather upset.
Congress wants to “push on” and “go forward”, while insisting they were kept in the dark. The problem is the sandstorm. Most Americans want real investigations of everyone involved. What’s found may or may not lead to charges.
Congress looks complicit by avoiding the call for investigation while it pleads ignorance. I stick by my spineless comment.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
99% of the time the desire for secrecy has nothing to do with not wanting your enemy to know what you’re up to, and everything to do with not wanting your own side to know what you’re up to. Claims that secrecy is needed should always be greeted with great suspicion by elected officials, accompanied by demands for detailed substantiation of the supposed need.
Also, what Craig said @ #3.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Bob Graham is really a little slow, I have listened to the man.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I think this is enough to raise significant doubt about the veracity of the CIA reports. Which is all the more reason for a thorough investigation.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Matt-
Congress leaks. Like, a lot. Telling the whole congress about a program guarantees that it will not remain secret. Telling just a few congress critters still creates a larger risk of a leak than not telling any of them, but it’s a compromise that allows for some congressional accountability.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I’m not sure what your position on this is Matt, but to me it’s not even a question of what the CIA told or didn’t tell Pelosi. Today she admitted that she knew the Bush administration had produced legal opinions stating that waterboarding was legal as early as 2003. Don’t you think that as an opposition party leader you ought to, I don’t know, oppose such legal opinions when they clearly conflict with the Geneva Conventions? Even if we accept the idea that she was unaware that waterboarding had been used, shouldn’t the fact that the administration considered a known torture technique legal have been motivation enough for her to take action?
Yes the Bush administration probably tried to mislead people, and perhaps the CIA is continuing to, but Pelosi’s admissions indicate a significant degree of culpability.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I think this is enough to raise significant doubt about the veracity of the CIA reports. Which is all the more reason for a thorough investigation.
Of course you do. Funny stuff.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
And Tyro, way to address my point. “Republicans are evil” is basically conceding my point, thanks.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Bob Graham is really a little slow
But he keeps meticulous journals.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Of course you do. Funny stuff.
Who wouldn’t? Sure, maybe the CIA reports are accurate and Graham is lying, but I don’t see how a reasonable person with only the public evidence to go on could conclude they knew for a fact that Graham was lying, as opposed to the reports being inaccurate.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I fully support a thorough investigation to see if Pelosi’s lying and find out what she knew and when she knew it, and if she could have done anything if she did know.
Of course, this investigation would also cover Cheney and the whole process by which torture was authorized.
What say you, Judd?
May 14th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Oh, and Judd, I’ll personally pay you $10,000 if you can last ten minutes of “getting wet”, as you so obfuscatingly put it. And you don’t even have to pay me anything if you can’t. You just have to admit that it’s torture and that it’s illegal.
What say you?
May 14th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
judd, have we suddenly decided that “godless moral relativism” in the service of The Party is the order of the day for Republicans?
May 14th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
It really ticks me off that some people seem to think that it is OK for the executive branch to break the law as long as it tells congress.
Who is saying that? The oversight committee was created to put a check on this kind of thing. Either it was misled or it didn’t do its job. It seems partisan of you to believe without any evidence that Pelosi is innocent.
If I was on the oversight committee, after 9-11 I’d be looking to see if the CIA was torturing b/c there was a lot of pressure to do so. Pelosi, who I like, and Graham must think we are stupid if they’re suggesting they assumed everything was just fine after 9-11. Abu Grahib was shocking still, but was I surprised? Not really. Maybe I’m cyncial.
Now with the Republicans bringing up Pelosi all the time as an alibi I think there should be a thorough investigation. They convinced me, even though I can see why Obama wants to move forward.
The Senate Intelligence committe will be releasing a report later this year.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Adam,
I’m all for it. Because I believe the Bush admin and Pelosi would be exonerated in full. I stated that Pelosi actually acted honorably back then, it’s her actions in the last month that are going to give her “political heartburn.” I believe, maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt it, that the outrage in EIT’s is only in the far left fringes and Andrew Sullivan, but I repeat myself.
Let’s have an honest discussion, not all this hyperbole about the ’soul of the country’ was destroyed. It is and was war.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Oh, and Judd, I’ll personally pay you $10,000 if you can last ten minutes of “getting wet”, as you so obfuscatingly put it. And you don’t even have to pay me anything if you can’t. You just have to admit that it’s torture and that it’s illegal.
Oh, please. Is that like the waterboarding chickenhawk argument? I haven’t plotted any terrorist acts recently, so it would be pointless. But if I had, I would expect it. The terrorist, who cut off peoples heads, are laughing at you.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
judd, what’s funny is that when you scratch a torture supporter, you find out that they’re not about ticking time bomb scenarios as much as they are about retaliation fantasies.
Seriously, go screw yourself. You don’t belong among civilized people. You belong with Bushlovers. Pretty much, yeah, supporting torture makes you a bad person. Lying by saying, “I mentioned it to a minority member of the House!” doesn’t exonerate one. I didn’t see Republicans passing a bill that banned torture. I saw Democrats supporting that bill and a republican president whom you supported vetoing it. I think that tells me what I want to know: you’re a torture supporting sleaze wedded to republican talking points to detract from your moral deficiencies.
The same people who supported and ordered torture are the ones who planned the war in iraq and made claims that iraq was behind the september 11th attacks: in short, liars and morons. What makes you think your claims have any relevance here?
May 14th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
“Republicans are evil” is basically conceding my point.
No. It is my point– you believe that torture and lying are all legitimate means of getting what you want in service to the party. You blindly obey and repeat the talking points of Rush and Hannity. You supported people who bogged us down in Iraq and bungled the attempts to defeat the taliban. You badmouthed and attacked and questioned the patriortism of anyone who believed differently. You lashed out in partisan vulgarity against the democrats led by Pelosi when she helped pass a bill that would have forced the CIA to use the army field manual for interrogations and then cheered on dishonest morons like bush when he vetoed it. You lack any moral judgment and you’re a willing tool of an adminisrtation that left office in ignominy. And the best you can whine is “oh, yeah! well pelosi heard about it!” it’s weak sauce from someone who knows he’s caught and being outed as a fool who supports evil to fulfill his juvenile ignorant revenge fantasies while spitting on everything he was taught as a
civilized citizen.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Let’s have an honest discussion, not all this hyperbole about the ’soul of the country’ was destroyed. It is and was war.
All’s fair in love and war? Well then you can’t complain when the other side tortures. Because we torture too.
Let’s have a thorough discussion and learn what was learned by “harsh techniques” (why not call it torture?) It doesn’t sound like much was learned which couldn’t have been learned by methods that didn’t compromise our values. But torture is a short-cut and the easy way done in a panicked response to an attack.
As far as I know the polls are evenly split on this, but the law is the law. If we are torturing, I just want Bush and Cheney and them to admit it. Not sanctimoniously go on about being members of the anti-torture treaty as Bush did. Cheney says it isn’t torture but he’s wrong. Who cares if it works or not. Don’t be a pansy and call it what it is. Treat us as adults.
As for the half of the citizens who are for it, I bet a large number of those just want revenge, it’s an eye for an eye, they don’t care if it gets info. The Arabs hit us? Well we’ll torture the shit out of ‘em and that will teach ‘em. And I bet a bunch of this group are Christians too which is funny.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Let’s have an honest discussion, not all this hyperbole about the ’soul of the country’ was destroyed. It is and was war.
What’s funny is that some people find themselves defending torture because they believe it to be the “mature, difficult decision” that “real men” have to make in “times of war.” When in fact, if you are actually a professional interrogator and actually know anything about fighting a difficult war, then you know that torture is counterproductive. Supporting torture is the childhood, fantasy view of how to win a war. But when you’re a Republican, it’s all about childhood fantasies masquerading as political sophistication.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
From the subhed to Pseudonymous in NC’s link:
Who knew history ran such a short course…
May 14th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Let’s have a thorough discussion and learn what was learned by “harsh techniques” (why not call it torture?)
Because it isn’t torture.
It doesn’t sound like much was learned which couldn’t have been learned by methods that didn’t compromise our values.
Than release the memos Cheney wants released. Bush’s head of intelligenc stated that 40% of our useful intelligence was gained from EIT’s. Obamas head of intelligence stated that there was useful intelligence gained from EIT’s, but wasn’t sure if they could have gotten the info using traditional techniques.
Cheney says it isn’t torture but he’s wrong.
You’re opinion.
I bet a large number of those just want revenge, it’s an eye for an eye, they don’t care if it gets info.
You don’t know that. Personally, I want it used as interrogation not punishment, which is what we did.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Because it isn’t torture.
Of course it is. But I am willing to have this issue–which, after all, is a matter of legal interpretation–decided in court.
Are you?
May 14th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
@23 judd: “The terrorist, who cut off peoples heads, are laughing at you.”
Don’t worry judd. We are killing terrorists. We are killing them on the battlefield. We are killing them when we hold them in captivity. In fact, we are killing lots of people, in lots of places.
Mark my words. When this is done, we will have out killed the terrorist by a factor of 100 to 1.
Personally, I laugh like a mad hyena just thinking about it.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Yeah, it’s not like the White House leaked any classified intelligence information, like the identity of a covert agent. Okay, so maybe they did, but it was on purpose. That makes it OK.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
I want it used as interrogation not punishment
You support torture. No one cares what you want. And in any case, you justified torture by saying that the people it was used on cut off people’s heads. You like the idea of using it on people who “deserve” it as a means of punishment. Why? because republicans told you to support it and republicans handed you some talking points to defend yourself with when called on it.
Seriously, you support cheney– and cheney has no credibility. And you don’t either.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Are you?
Sure.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Than release the memos Cheney wants released.
Oh, and let’s get everything released, not just what Cheney is trying to cherry-pick for his defense.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Sure.
Fair enough–hopefully we will get our wish.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Tyro,
Decaf
May 14th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Oh, and let’s get everything released, not just what Cheney is trying to cherry-pick for his defense.
Absolutely.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
I’m sorry, did anyone else not see this coming?
The CIA wanted to cover its ass by making the Bush Administration give this the veneer of legality. Part of that veneering was the memos. Another part of it was that when the President issues an order like this, he has to tell certain members of Congress.
The entire goal of this briefing was to say enough to later claim these people had been “briefed” without giving their political opponents enough information that it would give them an ability to stop this conduct.
Of course they misled. I mean, did you read the Bybee memos? This entire operation was an exercise in veneering. Bad legal advice, bad briefings, ridiculous orders…
All to get a guy to confess that
he was a secret Jewsorry, to confess that he knew of a secret link between Saddam Hussein and Al Quaeda.May 14th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
“The terrorist Osama bin Laden, who George Bush allowed to get away, is laughing at you.”
There, fixed that.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I’m not sure that, “calm down. let’s not get all excited about torture and my desire to punish under the veneer of my ignorant beliefs about interrogation!” is a point in your favor.
You’re full of crap, judd, as are the politicians you have delusionally and ignorantly supported. What makes you think your opinions are worth a damn? You’re just another republican loving shill most recently seen singing the praises of Cheney. if that’s not a sign of ignorance and general moral handicaps, I’m not sure what is. And you’re reduced to mouthing Republican talking points fed to you in your defense when outed for your moral failures in life.
It’s just another sign of how Republicans are failures, liars and force people who follow their party to become both. You go spouting stuff that is just the same juvenile ignorant stuff that republicans have always spouted.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
judd: I think you miss the point of the argument. It’s not just a chickenhawk thing, it’s that if waterboarding is something you’d not be willing to do with ten grand on the table, then it’s torture.
Torture is by definition the infliction of severe pain and suffering for punishment/interrogation/etc. If the pain of being waterboarded is bad enough so as to not be adequately compensated for by a nice check for $10,000, it is of a rather high quantity. QED.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Nancy Pelosi just said on CSPAN that she used her concern over the Bush torture memo to change the occupant of the White House.
That was the only strategy available to her for six years?
May 14th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
It’s another funny feature of the Republican mindset that one of the reasons judd supports torture is that he worries that terrorists might be “laughing” at him if he doesn’t. More proof about how their support for torture is to compensate for their sexual inadequacies, in addition to their moral and intellectual failures in life.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
That was the only strategy available to her for six years?
For 3 years until she became speaker. Her other strategy was to help remove Bush from office by supporting kerry– something many torture supporters were too cowed by the loyalty to the republican cause to do, having been manipulated into supporting torture themselves — and then, after becoming speaker, passing a bill to formally demand, regardless of Yoo’s opinions, that the CIA use the army field manual for interrogation. Bush vetoed this, to the cheering of right wing bushloving loons everywhere. So even if the right-wing liars were not lying about what pelosi was supposedly told, she even has a better track record than they do and than Bush does. As Bush supported torture, and Pelosi opposed it.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I haven’t plotted any terrorist acts recently, so it would be pointless.
Really? You clearly have something to hide.
As Jesse Ventura (who underwent it in as part of his SERE training) said this week: “you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.”
I’m sure you’d be admitting to fucking your sister’s cat within five seconds.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
All to get a guy to confess that he was a secret Jew sorry, to confess that he knew of a secret link between Saddam Hussein and Al Quaeda.
???
They were trying to prevent another attack. I think you’re still suffering from Bush-hate even though he’s been out of office for 4 months.
Are you in withdrawal? It will take a while.
One CYA CIA guy leaked that they were looking for a possible connection to Iraq ALONG WITH trying to prevent another attack. What an anti-war dweeb you are “Anon.”
Fucking weakest meme out there.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Graham and Pelosi were much fiercer opponents of the Bush Administration than Rockefeller and Harman. Both Graham and Pelosi voted against the Iraq war whereas both Rockefeller and Harman voted for it. Of course Graham and Pelosi were lied to.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Poptarts:
It just appeared in the press today that the Bush Administration wanted to waterboard one of the Iraqi POWs caught right after the fall of Saddam because they wanted him to confirm the Iraq-Al Qaida connection.
I’ll bet you are not a lawyer so you don’t understand the significance of this new fact. But you will, my friend. It’s inevitable.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
judd: I think you miss the point of the argument. It’s not just a chickenhawk thing, it’s that if waterboarding is something you’d not be willing to do with ten grand on the table, then it’s torture.
There’s alot of things I wouldn’t do for 10 grand, that does not make them torture, that’s just stupid.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Tyro,
I get it, you think I’m an evil, sexually deranged, lying nutbag, who doesn’t deserve to be listened to. So don’t.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
One CYA CIA guy leaked that they were looking for a possible connection to Iraq . . . .
There is a lot more evidence than that. We have statements from Major Charles Burney, an Army psychiatrist, to the Army Inspector General that the interrogators were under pressure to find Iraq ties. We have Colonel Lawrence Wilkinson, then Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Powell, who claims his investigations have found that “as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002–well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion–its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.” Wilkinson also connected that to the al-Libi story:
So we’ll see, but I suspect this aspect of the story is only going to keep growing.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Sorry, Lawrence Wilkerson, not Wilkinson.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Fucking coward.
“Tough” enough to want human beings to be tortured, but not man enough to say what he wants in a forthright manner.
Sorry little pansy hiding behind euphemisms. Pretty much all torture proponents are that way.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Fighting on a battlefield is the sort of thing which is “tough”. Torturing bound and detained and guarded prisoners is anything but tough. It may be any number of things, but macho it isn’t. It’s “tough” the way abusing tied up animals is “tough”.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
“Tough” enough to want human beings to be tortured, but not man enough to say what he wants in a forthright manner.
This sounds to much like projection. Alright, Joe, your “tough.” Happy?
May 14th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
The Pelosi brouhaha is the theater of the absurd. I mean, who gives a fuck about Pelosi’s non-role in State Sponsored Torture. No wonder people turn away from politics and the media that covers it and turns to sports.
Can you imagine the Sports Media going after a football team’s waterboy after a big loss? Spending weeks doing nothing but hounding and grilling the waterboy for being a close-up witness to the disaster while completely ignoring the responsibility of the coaching staff and the players for getting their asses whupped on the field? The fans would be outraged and would never stand for anything so farcical and the Sports Media knows it.
Not so in politics.
May 14th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Prison! Jail sentences for anyone involved! To the camps with all of those who support the torture of the innocent! To the camps! To the camps! These lies can only remind me the actions of the Politburo when they green-lighted Stalin’s schemes! To the camps with her!
May 14th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
joe doesn’t need much defense, and at the risk of troll-feeding, i still need to point out, judd, that he never said he’s tough, only that like most pansy bullies, you talk a good game, but you’re NOT tough.
May 14th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Is it just me or does it seem Yglesias is really really insecure about Pelosi’s crackup/hypocrisy/lying?
I think the truth has touched a nerve with your young partisan hack!
May 14th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Here’s the obvious bottom line: both Pelosi and Graham are politicians
This means they are fucking lying about this.
End of story.
There should be a Constitutional Amendment that says any official of the US government who is proven to have lied to any American citizen on any matter whatsoever is immediately stripped of his post.
If because of a secrecy requirement they can’t talk, they should be required to say so, then shut up – not lie about it.
And if Pelosi was lied to, then she’s fucking worthless at her job and needs to be canned, anyway.
May 14th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Looks like Graham’s contemporaneous records confirm the CIA’s records are off on some significant details, and his records also indirectly support his claims about content:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/14/graham-cia-gave-me-false_n_203683.html
May 14th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
i still need to point out, judd, that he never said he’s tough, only that like most pansy bullies, you talk a good game, but you’re NOT tough.
The only person who brought up “tough” as a motive is Joe. I never said one thing about “toughness.” Joe likes to assign motives to people he knows nothing about, as I guess you do as well. You are angry people, and it shows. You are so scared to be deemed not “tough” that you go around calling other people pansies, whatever.
May 14th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Fighting on a battlefield is the sort of thing which is “tough”. Torturing bound and detained and guarded prisoners is anything but tough. It may be any number of things, but macho it isn’t. It’s “tough” the way abusing tied up animals is “tough”.
I agree.
May 14th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Oh, and Nancy Pelosi is a liar! You know it, I know it and the American public will soon know it.
May 15th, 2009 at 1:11 am
I get it, you think I’m an evil, sexually deranged, lying nutbag, who doesn’t deserve to be listened to. So don’t.
I wouldn’t quite put it that way, but you’ve summed it up quite well. I’d ask you to stop belaboring under the delusion that your arguments are in any way to be taken seriously. We’ve really hit the baroque period when we’re at the point where it goes like this:
A: “Bush ordered the use of torture to try to uncover an Iraq-Al-Qaeda connection.”
B: “Pelosi! Pelosi! Pelosi!”
What exactly is the point of this exercise? You’ve been fed the talking points, but they don’t compose any sort of coherent argument. What we do know is that it looks like Bush and Cheney and Yoo, among others seem to have ordered and justified war crimes. Meanwhile, Pelosi doesn’t seem to have much to do with that, but it’s the only reply you can come up with, and it seems part of an overarching pattern of Pelosi-fixations on the part of the right-wingers. You want to get outraged about someone? Get outraged at Bush and Cheney. Oh, I forgot– you can’t since you’ve signed over your souls to them years ago and can’t condemn them now without facing punishment from your peers.
May 15th, 2009 at 1:21 am
Really, choad: tomorrow’s a school day.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:16 am
Meanwhile:
Said this months ago when everybody said he was going to stop all this – they’re all suckers. Obama is “Bush Lite”.
Obama to Revive Terror Tribunals
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/05/14/obama-to-revive-terror-tribunals/
Obama Mulls ‘Indefinite Detention’ Without Trial for Detainees
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/05/14/obama-mulls-indefinite-detention-without-trial-for-detainees/
May 15th, 2009 at 6:17 am
Obama’s latest effort to conceal evidence of Bush era crimes
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/13/photos/index.html
Democrats Grow Uneasy Over Obama’s Hawkish Policies
Open-Ended Wars, Open-Ended Detentions: Where’s the Change?
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/05/14/unease-grows-for-democrats-over-obamas-hawkish-policies/
May 15th, 2009 at 6:48 am
To anyone whose actually been paying attention for the last 8 years, these criticisms of Pelosi are absolutely hilarious. Can you imagine the response from the right if Pelosi, in 2003 or 2004 had publicized what the US policy on torture was? These soulless hyenas would have been baying for a lynching at the merest hint that she opposed Bush’s policy, much less revealed classified information. We would have heard about how she was a terrorist apologizing, executive authority undermining traitor.
In retrospect, how could you possibly regard Pelosi as complicit in these matters? Publicizing the limited information she had in 2003 or 2004 would have done no good whatsoever. She had, at best, memos detailing vague techniques that were allegedly legal. She still didn’t know any details about actual CIA conduct or the results. So she had no clear evidence of illegal behaviour in a political environment where she was completely powerless to demand additional investigation. Instead she opposed the president 100% in 2004 and passed a bill banning these techniques as soon as she was able. It’s virtually impossible to find a Democrat culpable under the circumstances. It’s the Republicans who were in a position to do something at the time and as a result, they own this policy.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Miserable little coward still isn’t man enough even to speak accurately about what he wants done.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:46 am
You want to get outraged about someone? Get outraged at Bush and Cheney.
That’s the funny thing, I’m not outraged at anyone, you are. So, if you want to be consistent, you should be outraged at Pelosi. But you’re not, so I guess this is all politics. Sad.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Hilarious!
If you were actually outraged about torture, you’d focus your ire on someone who didn’t order or authorize any torture. Because you’re outrage is, instead, focused on those who ordered torture, that just shows the whole thing is just political.
This makes sense, because hey look over there.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Judd, you continually and repeatedly regurgitate talking points that have no inherent value beyond the significance within circles of right-wingers who invented the talking points to begin with. We’ve repeatedly asked you to explain why your pelosi talking points are relevant, and instead of answering for it, you just mindlessly repeat them. it’s just this sort of stupidity which is the reason that Republicans are widely regarded as a party in decline and why anyone with a sense of pride supported Obama.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:26 am
We’ve repeatedly asked you to explain why your pelosi talking points are relevant, and instead of answering for it, you just mindlessly repeat them.
Look up thread. They are relevant because you are twisting in the wind trying to cover for Pelosi. You are giving her every benefit of the doubt because of her party affiliation, which shows hypocrisy. Which of the 4 versions of stories that Pelosi has come up with do you believe? I stated above, that I thought she acted admirably in 03, it is now that her behavior is disgusting.
And Joe, she had oversight. Be consistent, that’s all I ask.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Oh, and Tyro, you call them talking points, I call them facts. Just because you don’t want them to be true doesn’t mean they aren’t.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
And pushed through a law specifically banning waterboarding and requiring conformance with Geneva upon gaining the majority.
You do realize that you just responded to the charge of repeating talking points without explaining how they are relevant by repeating those talking points, don’t you?
They are relevant because…now, an actual answer would include a discussion of how the statements you’ve made are relevant. Instead, the rest of your statement is utterly devoid of any discussion of that subject.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Hey, choad: just because you’re a fucking moron doesn’t mean you’re not a fucking moron.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Joe,
This is your fight, not mine. You want to be consistent, you should be outraged at Pelosi. I could give a rats ass, in fact, the squirming by and on behalf of Pelosi makes me laugh. Just ask yourself, if Hastert was still Speaker and acting the way Pelosi is, what would be your reaction. You would be screaming “liar” until your lungs fell out. That’s the relevance.
May 15th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Just ask yourself, if Hastert was still Speaker and acting the way Pelosi is, what would be your reaction.
Actually, that is a very good question. There were Republican members of Congress just as involved, if not more so, than Pelosi. But I rarely see Democrats making a big fuss about those people: they are focused on the relevant people in the Administration.
In that sense, I think you just helped confirm that the Democrats aren’t really exhibiting that much of a double standard.