I had originally told Steve I was going to post about Carrie Prejean today, but I wanna save that for a vidblog. I have to do a quick post while I have time about a couple of things that are directly linked, both of which having to do with “enhanced interrogation techniques” and flip-flops. After agreeing to release photos taken of terror suspects being waterboarded during interrogation, Obama has now recanted on his promise. He’s suddenly decided that it would pose a grave threat to our troops to release the photos. I wonder if he thought about this BEFORE seeing them–or AFTER being warned by his military advisors that this was a no-no after all.
And Nasty Pelosi (er…ah…NANCY) suddenly decided a full week after her initial reaction to declare that the CIA lied to her about waterboarding. If you’ll recall, a week ago her spokesman reacted almost blankly to the CIA memos released that showed Pelosi was, in fact, informed in 2002 of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, saying merely that Pelosi had a “different recollection.” It took a week to get pissed off and start banging fists on the table. I don’t know ’bout ya’ll, but if it had been me, and I really didn’t know about it, I’d have been adamant about being left out of the loop from the get-go. It took the Pelosi camp an entire week to get indignant, claiming that the CIA lied about telling her that they were using specific techniques during interrogation.
Bit of a delayed reaction, don’t you think?
Now, as for Barkey’s flip-flop on the photos, I’m not upset that they’re not being released. I didn’t think they should be in the first place, any more than I thought Cheney should be calling for the release of classified CIA documents about the attacks that we managed to thwart. The war on terror isn’t over by a longshot. There are still many in the extremist Muslim world calling for America to be destroyed. Those photos and the documents that accompany them should, at least for now, remain classified. This is what a complete lack of executive experience does to you–you start making promises that you either can’t or should never keep. I promise that’s a concept that Sarah Palin understands, because she does (contrary to popular belief) have the executive experience that Obama doesn’t. Even suggesting that the photos be released was a bad idea, because he’s whet the appetite of the anti-war crowd and now the ACLU is going to tie up precious court resources trying to force Obama to publish them.
And Nancy…oh, Nancy. All of a sudden, the entire CIA and most of Congress is lying. They’re all out to get her. It’s all the fault of that vast right-wing conspiracy, too. I find it interesting that now Harry Reid and other Democrats aren’t so interested in this “truth commission” that everyone was calling for about these enhanced interrogation techniques. They’re all backtracking. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, they can’t claim that they didn’t know anything. If they didn’t agree with it back then, they could have spoken up and stopped it. They didn’t because everyone wanted to avoid the next 9/11. But now that the next disaster has been averted, and we don’t have any concrete reason for the EIT’s (at least none that can be unclassified), everyone’s up in arms about waterboarding–and the Democrats are singing “plausible deniability” in their best operatic vibrato.
I seem to recall Democrats flaying Reagan for saying “I don’t recall.” The shoe is now on the other foot. I hope it blisters like hell.
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This A.M. on The Today Show Nancy Pelosipig gets called out by Senator Kit Bond. You can see it all by clicking on the link below, choose Watch the Show, scroll down to the video on the left side of the screen.
Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri calls her out and does a great job. His video is above the Pelosi video.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/
She is one big nasty liar.
Sen. Joseph McCarthy went after the Dept. of the Army and that was his downfall.
Perhaps Nancy Pelosi’s run at the CIA will take her down too.
We can only hope!!!
One more thing I heard on The Today Show this A.M. or perhaps the morning news that aired just before it.
Obama is going to allow tribunals at GITMO for selected cases. The legal rules and stuff need to ironed out.
Wow. Didn’t he say he was going to shut GITMO down? It’s still open.
Then he suspends the tribunals. But GITMO remains open.
Now they are back on. So I guess GITMO remains open.
Yeah America, this is the change too many people voted for.
Speaking of change. Our wonderful Liberal leader is angry because banks are jacking up credit card interest rates and squeezing people. The solution? More laws.
How about my solution which I have followed for 9 years:
Get rid of your credit cards.
Pay cash for everything.
OR
Use credit wisely
Pay the balance off on time, every month.
When you do that, it doesn’t matter what the credit card interest rates are.
See how easy it is?
We don’t need more laws. What we need is more self control.
As far as Nancy Pelosi goes, I would normally be inclined to believe that she was lying about being briefed on this subject. It was my main theory for the reason she took impeachment off the table upon becoming Speaker of the House. I figured she didn’t want to go near impeachment because once hearings started, she, and other top democrats would be accessories after the fact, and that by removing impeachment as an option, she was merely protecting herself. Impeachment can neither be instigated nor stopped by the Speaker of the House. That decision would have come from John Conyers and the Judiciary Committee, but rumors began circulating that if Conyers filed articles of Impeachment, Pelosi would strip him of his rank. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but it was what I heard at the time.
Now, here comes a chance for Pelosi to redeem herself. I now have no reason to believe that she is lying. Former Senator Bob Graham was also named as having been briefed on waterboarding. The CIA gave Graham three dates on which he was supposedly briefed. On two of the dates, there were no briefings even held. Another reason I don’t think Pelosi was told anything about waterboarding is because Bob Graham wasn’t told anything about waterboarding (and for those salivating over smearing former Senator Graham, please realize that he has nothing to gain by lying). Also, Senator Graham and Speaker Pelosi’s staff were present during their “briefings”, and common sense would tell you that if they were briefed on secret interrogation techniques, there would be no way in hell that staff members would be present.
What really boggles my mind about this is how conservatives (who are understandably scared shitless about their role in torture) have shifted the debate from “we don’t torture, we didn’t waterboard” to “Nancy Pelosi knew, too”. What a weak fucking argument. If that’s the road you want to go down, why not attack Duncan Hunter, why not attack Kit Bond? They too were briefed. Bond, by the way, is complete fucking liar, having said some years back, that there was “significant republican dissension” on the matter, which we know to be false because Carl Levin has the paperwork that shows EVERY SINGLE republican signing off on this. Republicans were in lock step when it came to torturing detainees.
As far as Obama’s flip flop is concerned, I was a little confused as to why he would reverse his position, especially in light of the fact that David Patreaus was the one to make the suggestion that not only the 44 photos that the ACLU was requesting be released, but that all photos pertinent to detainee abuse be released, totaling over 2,000. As much as I hate to agree with Rush Limbaugh, I think he may be on to something. He said Obama is refusing to release these photos to placate Republicans, knowing full well that if it goes to the Supreme Court, the court will uphold the second court of appeals’ decision. That way, Obama is not the one ordering the release of the photos, the supreme court is. This way, republicans can’t bitch about Obama releasing the photos. It’s a win-win situation.
“I find it interesting that now Harry Reid and other Democrats aren’t so interested in this “truth commission” that everyone was calling for about these enhanced interrogation techniques. They’re all backtracking”
Uh, I don’t know if one of us has been in a cave or something, but I could have sworn that for the last couple of days, the Senate has been having hearings about the legality of this very issue. How is that backtracking? It seems an awful lot like follow through to me…
“I was a little confused as to why he would reverse his position”
This is no time for our wordy liberal to play dumb. Ever hear of political expediency.
The entire “torture” mantra has now come home to do the true POLITICAL damage to the left. We won’t stop until there is a true commission since liberals have forced us this far and now want to stop because darling Nancy is about to lose her seat.
We pulled off a Clinton impeachment, this will be a piece of cake.
The honeymoon’s over. You’d be best off supporting Dennis Kucinich: the only one left who is the left of Nancy Pelosi.
Are you retarded, Steve? You’re right when you say it’s over, just not for us. You’ve got Cheney on the TV basically admitting to war crimes, and testimony on the hill that points to torture to elicit phony testimony of an Iraq – Al-Qaeda link. You people are circling the drain, and fast. I’ll just sit back and enjoy you setting yourselves on fire, if you don’t mind…
Graham has everything to gain by lying. If the truth results in indictments, it could end up including ALL of those who knew about waterboarding and didn’t speak up against it. And if he’s still thinking of running again in the future, he has plenty to gain. Bill Clinton would have nothing to gain by lying about some of the stuff he did (or didn’t do) while in office, but he still lies through his teeth. It’s all about image.
And not one of us has tried to claim there was no waterboarding going on. I’m pretty sure we have admitted multiple times that it did happen. We’re not switching track here, Robert, we’re pointing out that several of those who are screaming for a “truth commission” knew about it when it was being done and said nothing. I don’t think they were counting on the CIA keeping track of who was briefed and when. I’d really like to know, though, how you can say that no briefings were held on certain dates. I can link the memo released by the CIA. What do you have? Graham and Pelosi’s word?
“And not one of us has tried to claim there was no waterboarding going on. ”
I didn’t mean you in this forum, I meant within the administration and other elected republicans.
“I’d really like to know, though, how you can say that no briefings were held on certain dates”
Well, apparently Bob Graham is a freak and writes down every single thing that he does in the course of a day, and I mean EVERYTHING. He keeps thousands of pocket sized spiral notebooks, and he checked the days the CIA said he was briefed. His notebook did not correspond, so he contacted the CIA, and they too confirmed that there were no briefings held on the days that they originally told him there were. It seems the CIA has trouble with their own book keeping…
Yes, but where did you read this? I haven’t read it anywhere. I was able to find the original CIA logs on interrogation briefings on several news organizations’ websites.
Graham said so himself, and the CIA tacitly agrees with him.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/05/14/senator-bob-graham-the-cia-made-up-two-briefing-sessions/
“It was my main theory for the reason she took impeachment off the table upon becoming Speaker of the House. I figured she didn’t want to go near impeachment because once hearings started, she, and other top democrats would be accessories after the fact, and that by removing impeachment as an option, she was merely protecting herself. ”
I have a different theory on Impeachment. There was no point to it. Bush Jr. was a lame duck. There was no way the Senate was going to convict him. It was a waste of time.
The Democrats learned well from the Clinton Impeachment. That too was a waste of time. There was no way the Senate was going to convict Clinton. Clinton too was a lame duck.
Nixon was not impeached. He chose to resign. That too would have been a waste of time. When a President is a lame duck then don’t bother. It’s the exact same thing as putting a terminally ill suspect on trial knowing that person will die very soon. Use your resources for more important things.