Reminder of the briefing record:
Pelosi has spoken publicly a few times, each time changing her version of events, tripping over her own lies, and finally accusing the CIA of "misleading" congress, despite the fact that the man that attended that 9/2004 briefing with her, states clearly that they were informed as the CIA claims and accuses Pelosi and others of selective amnesia.
Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich in an interview with ABC News Radio’s Marcus Wilson rips Pelosi a new one, saying she has lied to the House and to the American people about National Security matters and that she should be investigated fully.
Gingrich calls her conduct despicable, dishonest and vicious and goes further to call her a trivial politician.
"I think she has lied to the House, and I think that the House has an absolute obligation to open an inquiry, and I hope there will be a resolution to investigate her. And I think this is a big deal. I don't think the Speaker of the House can lie to the country on national security matters,” Gingrich said.
He continued: "I think this is the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I've seen in my lifetime."
"She is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowist of purposes, and she dishonors the Congress by her behavior."
"Speaker Pelosi's the big loser, because she either comes across as incompetent, or dishonest. Those are the only two defenses,” Gingrich said. “The fact is she either didn't do her job, or she did do her job and she's now afraid to tell the truth.”
Listen for yourself to his whole interview below and found at YouTube here.
President Obama's pick as Director of the CIA, Leon Penetta has rebutted Pelosi's public lies as well, sending a memo to his agency members.
Memo below:
Message from the Director: Turning Down the Volume
There is a long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business. It predates my service with this great institution, and it will be around long after I’m gone. But the political debates about interrogation reached a new decibel level yesterday when the CIA was accused of misleading Congress.
Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.” Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened.
My advice — indeed, my direction — to you is straightforward: ignore the noise and stay focused on your mission. We have too much work to do to be distracted from our job of protecting this country.
We are an Agency of high integrity, professionalism, and dedication. Our task is to tell it like it is — even if that’s not what people always want to hear. Keep it up. Our national security depends on it.
Finally, the White House is trying to stay the hell out of the line of fire, although it all started with Obama's decision to release "partial" memos in the first place. Talk about hit and run, problem is, Obama hit his own party members the hardest.
Across the blogosphere
Reactions to this firestorm surrounding Pelosi are varied across the blogosphere, but a few are worth mention, some for sheer entertainment value, such as Salon who blames the whole thing on...... Dick Cheney.
You might have thought getting torture back in the news would be a bad move for any Republican; after all, it was the Bush administration that authorized the torturing. But the last few days have shown Dick Cheney knew exactly what he was doing when he went on TV last week and started talking about "enhanced interrogation": It was a masterstroke of bureaucratic warfare.
To give the writer credit, they do admit Pelosi has no one but herself to blame for disastrous performance on Thursday where she "picked a fight" with the CIA.
Cheney, safely ensconced in his McLean, Va., mansion, must be chortling all the way to his cave every night. After three decades in the top levels of U.S. government, he knows better than most how to set his opponents against themselves.
Hot Air shows Pelosi's next set of lies, as she responds to the whole thing by backtracking again and claims that saying the CIA misled Congress, wasn't a criticism against the CIA, but against the Bush administration.
I don’t know what she could possibly mean by this after yesterday’s “the CIA misleads us all the time” sandbagging unless she’s now accusing Team Bush of pulling aside the agents in charge of briefings and ordering them to lie. Which is insane given that (a) by her own admission, agents did brief Congress about waterboarding Abu Zubaydah by early 2003; (b) in the political climate of the time, with Democrats gung ho to prove their “toughness” on terrorism, Bush had less to fear that they’d be squeamish about waterboarding if he told them than that they’d be enraged if he didn’t tell them because he thought they might be squeamish; and (c) according to Pelosi’s logic here, if this is all just another of the Bushitler’s conspiracies, then her failure to mention it until now means she’s been essentially covering for George Bush.
I don’t think she’s accusing Bush of anything here, actually. This statement is no more or less than her way of waving the white flag, eating her words about the CIA before she does any more damage or stumbles into any more idiotic non sequiturs about creating jobs in response to torture queries, and mindlessly dumping the whole thing in the lap of the left’s all-purpose villain. She gives up. It’s all Bush’s fault, even if it isn’t. No further questions, please.
So now her words, her claims, where she directly said, when asked if she was accusing the Central Intelligence Agency of lying to top lawmakers, Pelosi replied: “Yes, misleading the Congress of the United States — misleading the Congress of the United States. I am.”
What? Does Bush have his hand up her ass making her lips move while he speaks in her voice like a puppet master?
Johnny Dollar provides video of a discussion about Pelosi's claims and one of those being interviewed is a Former CIA member, who states very clearly, "Nancy Pelosi is a pathological liar."
You will find that at approximately the 1:42 mark on the video below.
Michael van der Galien from PoliGazette believes that Pelosi should step down for endangering the country's national security:
The CIA director feels forced to send his agents a memo to encourage them to “focus on their mission” because the speaker of the House of Representatives - who happens to be an extremely partisan and ideological hack - lied about the agency in order to save her own sorry butt. Pelosi’s conduct really is unacceptable. This memo should suffice to force her to step down.
Meanwhile, Pelosi continues to change her story. She admitted earlier this week that she knew back in 2003 that the CIA waterboarded terrorists.
As said, Pelosi’s conduct is unacceptable. She should step down immediately. Not only is she lying, she is also endangering national security by forcing the CIA to focus on political survival rather than on protecting the country.
Well said.
Don Surber cracked me up saying "But it does not work that way. She called the CIA briefers liars. The last 6 years of the Democratic Party’s politicization of the war is catching up with it. Pelosi looks like Dead Speaker Walking."
Ok, one more thing.... Weekly Standard has a great piece out "Dick Cheney, Most Valuable Republican."
So while some Hill Republicans were fretting about getting a positive message out and others were launching substance-free listening tours, while GOP operatives were wringing their hands about whether Republicans could recover from the Bush years, and while most senior Bush alumni were in hiding, Dick Cheney--Darth Vader himself, Mr. Unpopularity, the last guy you'd supposedly want out there making the case--stepped onto the field. He's made himself the Most Valuable Republican of the first four months of the Obama administration (ably assisted by a few bold denizens of the Hill like the ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, Pete Hoekstra).
That should make some heads explode.
This has been today's segment of "Watching Pelosi's Head Spin"......... stay tuned for more.
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