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Time for Nancy to Put Her Money Where Her Mouth Is

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has alleged that the CIA lied to her, a criminal offense, given that she’s a Member of Congress.  Now, Cornell Law Professor William A. Jacobson is asking her to back up her charges:

The person two heartbeats away from the Presidency immediately should provide law enforcement officials with the evidence she has, including testimony under oath, to back up her allegations of criminal conduct by the CIA, so that a criminal investigation can proceed if warranted.

If the person two heartbeats away from the Presidency is not willing to put her own criminal liability on the line in making these accusations against the CIA, she should resign.

He’s right.  She has made an allegation and needs back it up.  And if she can’t, she should resign.

Sometimes, it seems Democrats are playing this partisan game where the object is to defeat, discredit or shame Republicans rather than serve the American people as a whole.  They sometimes forget they’re in positions of power and responsibility, controlling the fate of the nation.

Mrs. Pelosi sure isn’t acting like a responsible steward (or, given her gender, should I say stewardess?).

Comments

  1. I don’t get it. Why is being two heart beats away from the Presidency more concerning than when the heartbeat in the presidency lies under oath to a federal judge. So Nancy has botoxed the truth. At least she didn’t claim to make huge money in cattle futures while looking for the lost billing records that were stacked next to the 300 FBI raw files. She should throw replicas of her medals over the White House fence and take her CIA floppy hat out of her brief case and slip into Cambodia on a clandestine mission.

    Maybe Barney, Charlie and Alcee can give her some pointers on staring down the truth.

  2. Bruce,
    I don’t know if you’re old enough to recall Sinead O’Connor’s statement on SNL slamming Pope JP II.She felt it would be very popular,and even a proof of her street cred.As the reaction against it swelled,she seemed baffled by her lack of support.Enjoy the fun

  3. Excellent points, heliotrope. Every single politician and those bureaucrats they saddle us with should be held to a very high standard. The American public and press seem content with the lowest of standards. And they (Democrats mostly, and the media) have the audacity to criticize business people!

  4. I suspect Chairman Obama’s gonna promote Pelosi to ambASSador of Dumbassistan or someplace where she’ll never be heard from again. That is, if the CIA doesn’t take care of her first.

    I don’t know if you’re old enough to recall Sinead O’Connor’s statement on SNL slamming Pope JP II.

    Who? 😉

    Both Bruce & Dan are older than I am and I remember that. I think I’m the youngest regular at 35 y/o.

  5. #3 Audacity to criticize business people. Indeed, but the really off putting thing about this administration is the willingness of the both the president and the speaker to mock the citizens of the country they are supposed to represent. In all those terrible dark 8 years of Bush dictatorship (sarc), he endured major protests against his policies and the war in Iraq. Not once did Bush ever complain about the protests; in fact he mentioned numerous times the right of citizens to speak their minds. The Tea Parties produced about 1.5 million protesters last April, and Obama, first claiming not to be aware of them, then insulted honest citizens in peaceful protest by referring to them as “those people waving tea bags”. So lets remember that he slurred the very people who’s freedom he swore to uphold.

  7. The Other Peter. I think there is more at play here than just what she said. This is the internal politics of the Democratic party coming into play. She has many enemies in here own party, Jane Harman and Stoney Hoyner come to mind immediately. The knives are out, so lets just sit back and enjoy the popcorn.

  8. Nancy Pelosi may well be the opening wedge which begins to differentiate between the undying “true believers” such as Daily Kos and HuffPo, and saner, more bog-standard liberals, not to mention the center-lefters/independents. Can’t say offhand if the Democrats have an element equivalent to libertarians, as they seem to be considered a “right wing” movement these days.

    Point being that neither side is monolithic, despite frequent and regular broadsides on the evils of the other side. There’s quite a bit of variety within both the “left” and the “right.”

    As for Murtha, he’s the second verifiable example of a genuine EX-Marine known to the Corps. The only reason the bastiche is still in office is that he pretty much politically owns a healthy chunk of Pennsylvania territory from decades of pork.

  10. And no I’m not confident anything bad is going to happen to the Speaker. Remember in this Congress you have a murderer, a child molester, the CEO of a whorehouse, a money launderer, an ex grand buba of the Klan etc. The media thinks thats all funny. So someone guilty of treason or slander of CIA agents is peanuts. MSNBC tonight was appopletic about something Cheney said 6 years ago so I’m not holding my breath. Someone said Pelosi calling the CIA liars was on page A20 today of the NYT. The way the press and the Democrats play their scandals is next week if a question is asked about this…..”hey that’s been asked and answered, it’s last weeks news, we’ve moved on to HEALTH CARE AND feeding children”. NEXT!!!!!!!!!!

  11. Gene,

    I am sitting and I am watching. Pelosi has crossed the line with the CIA. She has enemies in her own party…

    I do not believe the conspiracy theories about JFK but there are some unanswered questions about his killer… was he a hitman? Did Jack Ruby kill Lee Harvey Oswald to make sure that he could not talk and give away the information on who had hired him for the hit?

    I am not saying that there will be a paid hit on Pelosi, there are other ways to take care of her….. and it could happen, especially when she is so busy creating bad blood between Congress and the CIA.

    The CIA was not friendly towards GWB and it is probable they fed him wrong information…. or it could be that the WMD were found but the denials were meant to discredit Bush for going into Iraq… I am only speculating on these things and not claiming them to be true…. it is just that there are some very loose ends… including the possibility that the materials were shifted to either Libya, Syria, or even Iran.

  12. Sometimes, it seems Democrats are playing this partisan game where the object is to defeat, discredit or shame Republicans rather than serve the American people as a whole. They sometimes forget they’re in positions of power and responsibility, controlling the fate of the nation.

    Surely, GPW, you haven’t forgotten that the Democrats agreed, almost to a man, to protect Bill Clinton when he lied under oath, suborned perjury, and tampered with witnesses?

    If they can do that, what does Nancy Pelosi spinning stories about the CIA mean to them?

    As a certain radio talk show host likes to say, the Dems don’t claim to have any standards, so they can’t be accused of violating any.

  13. GPW –
    I agree 100%. If she is lying resign – and if she was complicit in torture – jail time.
    The best way to determine what people knew and when is a full fledged investigation into the whole torture apparatus.
    Hopefully we can find the answer to the above and the following questions:
    Were Americans torturing Iraqis solely to find a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam?
    What did they tell congress?
    Who knew about it?
    Should we punish the people who did the torturing or should we punish those who authorized it?
    How can we make sure it does not happen agian?

  14. Yeah! gillie …… you obviously have decided that waterbaording IS torture. Now you have a problem of whale sized proportions. Every member of Congress, the Department of Justice, the Department of State, the CIA, the Department of Defense, the Executive Branch, the Department of Homeland Security and Saturday Night Live who knew about waterboarding and stood silent would be complicit. Democrats, Republicans and even moderates and aisle crossers would be accessories.

    But then, perhaps waterboarding WAS NOT torture until Obambi and his thug fawns decided to upgrade it for political theater. Suppose, then, that all the actors and clowns lined up with Obambi like a Greek chorus and chanted “shame, shame, shame” and “woe be unto those who torture” and the mighty Holder was unleashed to run the Bush Administration lawyers to ground.

    And from out of the chorus stepped Ms Nancy of Pelosi saying “it is an awful crime of torture most brutal and I would have stopped it had I been known.” And all around her were her fellow Democrats who knew and were there and understand complicit and there was a might backing away from Ms Nancy of Pelosi.

    Idiots who practice to deceive weave tangled webs and end up trapping themselves. Even Obambi has learned to speak only when teleprompted. Only Joe is allowed to stumble around for comic relief.

    What will Obambi do if he gets his own flock of terrorists? Use Clinton style rendition and turn them over to Eqypt where waterboarding is a relief? Perhaps he will turn them over to the ACLU and New York Times editorial board. Maybe he will put them up in the Lincoln Bedroom and break them down by chatting them up.

    Suggestions, gillie, we are longing for your suggestions.

  15. Heli
    2 points –
    1 according to my understanding, congress cannot divulge classified information given to them in a briefing.
    But you are right. All he knew about it, authorized and set it up should be punished.
    2 Waterboarding has been torture for 1000’s of years. Even John McCain has said so.
    If you say somehow we are more moral than those prior torturers, because we created a formal torture process, that’s one thing. But to say its not torture is simple insanity.
    Especially now that we find out that we tortured only to find connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam
    – NOT to protect lives but to protect reputations.
    I cannot understand how “Conservatives” are not condeming this.

  16. Dan, others,

    What do you think about Huntsma’s appointment to the China post? President Obama certainly knows how to eliminate the competition with sweet deals. Of course, the primary would have been tough on poor John, being a sane man running in an insane setting, of course, but what a wonderful development! I’ve always liked Huntsman.

  18. The best way to determine what people knew and when is a full fledged investigation into the whole torture apparatus.

    And then there’s prosecutorial discretion which essentially says that just because you can prosecute doesn’t always mean that you should. Which is probably why Holder punted on prosecuting Yoo & Bybee.

    Not to mention that the Obumbler Administration couldn’t use their decision in Demjanjuk v. Holder. Plus, there’s the aspect that they don’t want to get bogged down in investigations when they could be ramming through the economic destruction of the United States.

    But to say its not torture is simple insanity.

    How about to say that it’s not torture by US law? How about to say that we’re a damn sight more moral thant the al-Qaeda torturers?

    KSM takes credit for personally dispatching Richard Pearl along with almost 3,000 people in NYC. If you want to raise hell about torture and holding those responsible, how about demanding HIS prosecution?????

    I eagerly await your excuses.

  20. Whew, Livewire. For a minute there I thought Cheney was going to have to run out and retract his request that documents showing the RESULTS of waterboarding be made public. He obviously would not want it to be revealed that the Bush administration was looking for a reason, ANY reason, to attack the peaceful nation of Iraq. (For their oil, natch. Haliburton, ya know.)

  21. gillie, take a gander at this:

    http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTJjNjg1OThmOTVlMWVmYTZiM2Q5ZGU5NzdjY2E0ODQ

    If you apply the UN definition of torture and you consider terrorists covered by the Geneva Conventions, then you have a whole Nuremberg type trial on your hands.

    The UN rules say you can not inflict severe pain or mental stress. The wags who keep Wikipedia leaning way left have included waterboarding as torture. If this is the standard, then just about anything, even incarceration, can cause severe mental stress.

    But more importantly, we know that Congressmen, military people, State Department people, Justice Department people, Executive Branch people, Congressional oversight committees, etc. all reviewed and shaped the waterboarding rules. Each and every one of these people is complicit if you insist that waterboarding is torture.

    Under this interpretation, Nancy Pelosi is positioning herself to be beyond the grasp of the investigation. Holder has decided he will go after the lawyers who studied the laws and treaties and gave advice concerning the use of waterboarding. How can the responsibility rest only those who considered legality of the procedure and not also on those who authorized, oversaw and conducted the procedure?

    The President can specifically outlaw waterboarding and officially declare it torture from this time forward. But when he chooses, through Holder, to go back and target specific individuals with an ex post facto (unconstitutional) infraction he is playing politics and nothing more.

    Therefore, the best way to fight Obambi and his attempt to nail specific political enemies is to force him to throw everyone connected with waterboarding into the stew. That is what is known as a political bloodbath and it is the basic concept that underlies Chicago politics. Obambi knows how that game is played and he also knows he can’t keep his own important party members from being taken down in the process.

  22. What the liberals have unleashed here, helio has nailed. This goes way beyond Pelosi. Now we all know she is dumb and might have “misremembered” the many briefings. But this also includes many more Democrat stallwarts. Rockefeller, Harman, Berman, Kerry, Dodd even Reid. If CIA lawyers are going to be prosecuted, let’s get moving and herd all of the above into the dock. This could end up being very informative and fun. The American people want the innocent protected. Only fairy tale liberals swear off waterboarding. I would hope if their mothers or sisters or daughters were held by terrorists, they would agree to waterboard someone with information to save the innocent. If not, I feel sorry for them AND THEIR FAMILIES. Leftists talking heads continue to state the lie, that some of the enhanced methods don’t get real and actionable information. It does. The CIA said so. Only the far left continue to lie about the positive results.

  23. Since gille has rejoined the group….
    What did you think of Pelosis press conference? Should she, like Obama use teleprompters exclusively when addressing anyone in public? How do you explain away her bumbling? Is she the best and brightest of the House Democrats? Was Panetta right to come out publically to support his agents and totally contradict the Speaker? Did Obama know Pelosi Harman Berman Rockefeller Dodd all knew about waterboarding? Was it helpful for Cheney to ask for more CIA memos be released to prove enhanced interogations had been successful? Will you accept more help like this from the previous administration to help get Obama thru stickey situations? Are you glad Obama took Cheneys suggestion, to not release more Abugrab photos, as it would endanger innocent American troops overseas? Domestically, were you surprised CEO Obama closed all the Chrysler plants? Did you expect him to close so many auto dealerships and lay off all those employees as well? Sorry about the length. But when Obama has such tough weeks, it seems all the Obamaphiles and leftists hide under the bed. And we can’t get straight answers to simple questions. As you know the press doesn’t help out much. Thx.

  25. 1 according to my understanding, congress cannot divulge classified information given to them in a briefing.

    When the hell has that ever stopped liberals like Leaky Leahy, John F.You Kerry (who served in Vietnam) etc. etc. etc.???

  26. I found this at NRO. It appeared May 15.

    [Rep. Dan] Lungren [(R., CA) and the state’s former attorney general] then switched gears to a line of questioning aimed at clarifying the Obama Justice Department’s definition of torture. In one of the rare times he gave a straight answer, Holder stated at the hearing that in his view waterboarding is torture. Lundgren asked if it was the Justice Department’s position that Navy SEALS subjected to waterboarding as part of their training were being tortured.

    Holder: No, it’s not torture in the legal sense because you’re not doing it with the intention of harming these people physically or mentally, all we’re trying to do is train them —

    Lungren: So it’s the question of intent?

    Holder: Intent is a huge part.

    Lungren: So if the intent was to solicit information but not do permanent harm, how is that torture?

    Holder: Well, it… uh… it… one has to look at… ah… it comes out to question of fact as one is determining the intention of the person who is administering the waterboarding. When the Communist Chinese did it, when the Japanese did it, when they did it in the Spanish Inquisition we knew then that was not a training exercise they were engaging in. They were doing it in a way that was violative of all of the statutes recognizing what torture is. What we are doing to our own troops to equip them to deal with any illegal act — that is not torture.

    … Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), a former judge, continued the “intent” line of questioning in an attempt to make some sense of the attorney general’s tortured logic.

    Rep. Louie Gohmert: Whether waterboarding is torture you say is an issue of intent. If our officers when waterboarding have no intent and in fact knew absolutely they would do no permanent harm to the person being waterboarded, and the only intent was to get information to save people in this country then they would not have tortured under your definition, isn’t that correct?

    Attorney General Eric Holder: No, not at all. Intent is a fact question, it’s a fact specific question.

    Gohmert: So what kind of intent were you talking about?

    Holder: Well, what is the intention of the person doing the act? Was it logical that the result of doing the act would have been to physically or mentally harm the person?

    Gohmert: I said that in my question. The intent was not to physically harm them because they knew there would be no permanent harm — there would be discomfort but there would be no permanent harm — knew that for sure. So, is the intent, are you saying it’s in the mind of the one being water-boarded, whether they felt they had been tortured. Or is the intent in the mind of the actor who knows beyond any question that he is doing no permanent harm, that he is only making them think he’s doing harm.

    Holder: The intent is in the person who would be charged with the offense, the actor, as determined by a trier of fact looking at all of the circumstances. That is ultimately how one decides whether or not that person has the requisite intent.

    Who writes Holder’s stuff …….. Pelosi?

  28. #26 Brilliant helio. It is a great discription of how liberals twist themselves into a pretzel trying to justify SELECTIVE INTERPRETATION of a standard. Trust me, in an Obama administration, waterboarding to save lives is fine and dandy because the are “goodly and righteous”. Repbulicans and conservatives of course wouldn’t hold up to the same standard. Any waterboarding during a Republican administration would be accomplished by evil doers….thus it would be bad. Simpletons. How do these kind of people run a country? Not very well as we’ve seen.

  30. So we got one little hit from gille and he has joined the rest of the leftist Democrats under the bed until Pelosi rights herself. Or Obama absorbs another corporation? Chickens.