There has been some degree of speculation as to why Nancy Pelosi has engaged in this bizarre demagoguery which began with her demanding Bush officials be prosecuted for their waterboarding “torture” and has (with two or three versions of her story in-between) since morphed into a claim that the entire CIA is lying about the fact that she was fully briefed on the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” and accepted it.
It’s really not that much of a surprise that Nancy Pelosi would engage in such demagoguery. After all, it worked to perfection during the last election, when Democrats were able to successfully lie and demagogue Republicans regarding blaming them for the financial collapse.
The difference was that then, Democrats, along with a dishonest and biased media propaganda machine, were demagoguing Republicans. But when Barack Obama opened the gates of partisan hell by releasing only those memos that he intended to use to attack Republicans, a few Democrats like Nancy Pelosi got caught in the same net. And when Nacy Pelosi was ultimately forced to either admit she was lying or apply her demagoguery to the CIA, she was likewise attacking even more liberals.
The thing about the CIA, as anyone smarter than Nancy Pelosi understands, is that there are an awful LOT of liberals at Langley:
One complaint often heard privately within law enforcement circles is that the Central Intelligence Agency over the years has morphed into a Liberal think tank rather than maintaining its role as a strategic and tactical intelligence agency. An even bigger concern is that the agency has become overly politicized and prone to leaking information to the mainstream news media in order to have an impact upon the political climate within the Beltway.
And liberals, as much as they love demagoguing, hate being the victims of demagoguery. And so they tend to fight back. And media propagandists are suddenly forced to choose which liberals they want to defend.
Doctrinaire career liberal Leon Panetta, for instance, was forced to choose between Nancy Pelosi and his agency. And Panetta and many of the liberals in the CIA who have been leaking information to the media to hurt Republicans for years have their own media sources.
This isn’t like your standard political squabble, in which the mainstream media know immediately who to knee-jerk demagogue (Republicans) and who to knee-jerk defend (Democrats).
Pelosi foolishly thought her attack on the CIA could somehow be limited to “the Bush CIA.” But there is no such thing: the overwhelming majority of CIA employees span administrations. And Panetta and a few others aside, “the Bush CIA” is largely identical to “the Obama CIA.”
So I have a slightly different take than the typical “Nancy Pelosi shouldn’t have taken on the CIA.” Rather, Nancy Pelosi shouldn’t have exposed the liberals at the CIA to criticism in the course of her demagoguery. Because they can demagogue right back. AND GET ON THE NEWS!
CIA Chief Rebuts Pelosi on Briefings
WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency’s chief fought back Friday against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s assertion that the CIA “was misleading” Congress, issuing a memo defending the integrity of its employees and contradicting her assertion that she wasn’t told about the agency’s use of waterboarding to interrogate suspected terrorists.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said at a press conference Thursday that Congress was misled by the CIA in regards to questions about waterboarding.
Later in the day, Ms. Pelosi tried to defuse what has turned into an unusual open feud between Congress and the spy agency, with a statement praising the work of intelligence officers and redirecting her rhetorical fire toward the Bush administration.
Apart from the institutional contretemps, the matter has put Ms. Pelosi in conflict with CIA director Leon Panetta, a former colleague when both belonged to California’s Democratic congressional delegation.
“CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah, describing ‘the enhanced techniques that had been employed,'” Mr. Panetta wrote in a memo to agency employees. He was referring to an alleged senior al Qaeda detainee in CIA custody in September 2002, when Ms. Pelosi attended a briefing in her capacity as the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Other intelligence officials also contradicted Ms. Pelosi’s account of the briefing, saying her assertion that she wasn’t told waterboarding was in use at the time is wrong. “That’s 180 degrees different from what the CIA’s records show,” an intelligence official said.
For the record, the article states that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded “83 times.” But that’s just another example of the mainstream media’s pro-Democrat and anti-Republican bias:
A close look at a Red Cross report on the interrogations makes the numbers even clearer.
As the Red Cross noted: “The suffocation procedure was applied [to Abu Zubaydah] during five sessions of ill-treatment … in 2002. During each session, apart from one, the suffocation technique was applied once or twice; on one occasion it was applied three times.”
The total number of applications: between eight and 10 — not the 83 mentioned in the Times.
The media were selectively dense because they realized that if they took out “pours” and replaced the word with “times,” “183” would sound like a lot more than “8.” And the higher number DID make Bush sound like a real rat bastard, after all.
If Nancy Pelosi were caught red-handed with $90,000 in FBI sting money hidden in her freezer, she would be completely safe. After all, liberals would rush to her aid from all sides to defend her from conservative attacks and use the same sort of shenanigans that they came up with to transform “8” waterboardings into “183” waterboardings.
As it is, she committed the unpardonable sin of tarnishing other liberals.
Had that not happened, this whole “waterboarding” fiasco would have played out as the typical communist show trial. But as soon as a few liberal CIA officials began to get dragged in, the whole thing turned into a bizarre new retelling of Arthur Miller’s “Crucible,” in which sordid liberal characters began to accuse other liberals of “waterboarding witchcraft” as a ploy to save themselves.
Tags: Bush, CIA, Leon Panetta, Media, Nancy Pelosi, waterboarding, Zubaydah
Start Thinking Right 
May 17, 2009 at 10:49 am
Old Russian saying…You can tell same lie 1000 time(Ms. Pelosi) but not change truth!
Difference between USSR Communist media and USA “mainstream media”
In Russia government make media say what they want – even if lie.
In USA “mainstream media” try make government what they want – even if lie..
…..eventually they become same thing?!
I Igor produce Obama Birth Certificate at http://www.igormaro.org
May 17, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Nancy Pelosi is a hypocritical liar. I wish she and every other American who is calling water boarding ‘torture’ would be required to watch an abortion (they cut off live babies arms and legs to get them out of their mother’s wombs and yes the babies feel the torturous pain!) and partial birth abortion procedures. They should also be required to watch Daniel Pearl’s head being cut off by a terrorist and watch the American’s that were forced to jump out of windows to their death on 9-11. THOSE activities are TORTURE!!!
A few minutes of fear for mass murderers to extract vital information that saved lives is not torture.
Nancy Pelosi is like Obama…..THEY WILL SAY ANYTHING AND THEIR WORDS MEAN NOTHING!!! They are an embarassment to America.
Michael, I just listened to a portion of Obama’s speech at Notre Dame and his lying comments about reducing abortions and increasing adoptions and let’s just all try to understand each other and I was in tears I was so angry.
May 17, 2009 at 5:28 pm
I’m someone who says, “At the very least, waterboarding FEELS like torture. Let’s agree and call it torture. And let’s do it to these terrorists if we feel we need to break them to save American lives.”
Bush waterboarded THREE people. The whole “183 times” thing is crap; that was the number of “pours,” not the number of waterboardings. Doctors and trained specialists were all around the terrorists to ensure that no genuine physical harm came to them.
I wish we didn’t have to waterboard. I wish we didn’t have to firebomb Tokyo and Dresden. But when an evil enemy attacks us who has no respect of any kind for human life, we have to fight them. And – as someone who has been in fights, punched men in the face, and seen their blood spurt – I can assure you that “fighting” is NOT pleasant.
Sorry, but better terrorists get bloody than innocent civilians in peaceful societies. Liberals have that equation turned around.
May 17, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Igor,
First of all, keep up the blogging! Don’t let language be a barrier to you! Your English is dramatically better than almost any American’s Russian! As a man who experienced the VERY SAME THING American liberals are leading us toward now, YOU are an expert!
Unfortunately, Hitler had a different view, saying essentially, Lie BIG and KEEP lying and the people will believe you. And it works, at least for a short time.
I also believe that as a people become more and more amoral, they become more and more susceptible to the lie – even PREFERRING the lie to the truth.
An amazing thing that began to emerge after the collapse of the Soviet Union was how many religious people (specifically Christians) had lived behind the Iron Curtain. In spite of the worst threat to human freedom in the history of the world, we saw this incredible evidence of the courage and dignity of people the face of tyranny. There will ALWAYS be a faithful remnant, no matter how many lies we are told.
May 17, 2009 at 8:14 pm
STOP! The Attacks On Speaker Pelosi
Last time they tried to attack Speaker Pelosi ( second in line to the President of the United States) it was about her alleged abuse of military transportation. This attack as expected turned out to be bogus. It turned out that the previous Speaker (Hastert – a Republican) made far more use of military transportation. It turned out that Speaker Pelosi was possibly overly prudent and too self-restrained in her use of military transportation.
Now Republicans are trying to attack her about allegedly having been told by the Bush administration about things she was not told about, like water boarding. Republicans are attacking her because she is being so effective at getting the peoples work done in congress, like healthcare. And Republicans want to stop her. Don’t put up with that. Every time they attack Speaker Pelosi they are attacking you and the rest of the American people. If they go after her, go after them even harder.
They are trying to con Speaker Pelosi and the American people. And here is how it works. Approximately 6 years ago CIA had a briefing with Pelosi and congress, but DID NOT tell congress and Pelosi that the Bush administration was using torture ( water boarding ) on detainees. Then the Bush administration sent in Porter Goss to head the CIA and to destroy, and doctor records in part to make it look like Pelosi, and the Democrats in congress were onboard with the illegal torture of detainees by the Bush administration.
See, apparently at these intelligence briefings members of congress are not allowed to take notes. And if they do, they are not allowed to keep them. Apparently the CIA makes notes, but the members of congress are not allowed to see those notes either. And they can’t tell anybody about what was said at the briefings. But the CIA can come back six years later and claim they told members of congress something six years ago that they did not tell them at that time. And they can use falsified notes to substantiate their claim. Planting disinformation was the type of thing the CIA became very good at during the time Porter Goss was a young CIA agent. Just gotta love it. :-)
If you will remember, their was a mass exodus of senior CIA officials after Porter Goss took over. And the complaint at the time was that longtime, highly experienced agents were being replaced by other people based mostly on their political loyalties to the Bush administration and their extreme right-wing ideologies. Which is just exactly what you need if you want people who will be willing to break the law under orders. Sound familiar? I don’t think you can trust any CIA records after Goss took over.
I have nothing but the utmost respect, and admiration for the dedicated and patriotic members of OUR! Central Intelligence Agency. When the Bush administration betrayed one of OUR! agents (Mrs. Wilson) it made me boiling MAD! I think our new Director Pennetta has got some internal investigation and agency house cleaning to do. If you backtrack on the individuals that have been making the false attacks on Speaker Pelosi, and trace who they have had contact and conversations with, you should be able to connect the dots and catch your conspirators.
The key that the CIA records are falsified is Sen. Bob Graham and his journal, and common sense. :-) By the way, I think Mr. Pennetta is an excellent choice to head the CIA and fix it.
They are trying to kill healthcare reform. And continue our healthcare crisis. Don’t put up with that.
PASS THE WORD.
To The Congress Of The United States:
If it is true that you are not allowed to have or make any permanent records of your intelligence briefings for later clarifications, and protection, that is ridiculous. That leaves all of you vulnerable to just this type of scam that is being perpetrated on Speaker Pelosi. So here is what you can do about it to protect your-selves in the future.
Members should be able to make notes and other recordings of these briefings. Then these briefings and recordings can be reduced to a computer file that can then be encrypted and digitally signed with a detached digital signature using key encryption. Then each of you can encrypt, and sign each others copy of the record that can only be unlocked with the other parties key. And both parties copies can be verified with each others copy of the files detached digital signature.
Very easy. Very secure. No more exposure to falsified records down the road. :-)
You see, it almost doesn’t really matter what CIA allegedly did or didn’t tell Speaker Pelosi, and congress. Because the briefing format is so deficient of any checks, balances, or verification that all we know is that all external briefing accounts support Speaker Pelosi’s version of events. Pelosi and congress should have been given every benefit of the doubt. And that should have been it.
There are many other booby traps out there set for you congress. Be careful.
God Bless You
jacksmith — WORKING CLASS
p.s. I still think the timing of Sen. Bob Graham’s ruptured cerebral aneurism was suspicious. More so now, than before.
May 18, 2009 at 12:22 am
Two things:
1) There is a massive flaw in your liberal talking point logic re: Pelosi and Hastert and the jet. I don’t know that much about Hastert and jets, and I frankly don’t care. He hasn’t been the Speaker of the House for a while, last time I checked. But I DO know that Pelosi has abused her privileges as a couple of articles should prove:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2009/mar/judicial-watch-uncovers-documents-detailing-pelosis-repeated-requests-military-travel
http://archives.californiaaviation.org/legislative/msg09264.html
I notice the second one says, “Pelosi wants to EXPAND Hastert Use of Military Planes.”
But let’s say you’re right and Hastert was an even worse abuser. Does that mean that Pelosi isn’t likewise an abuser? Are you serious? That’s like saying Stalin killed more people, therefore Hitler isn’t a murderer. It’s ridiculous. And you may be too ignorant to understand this, but government spending is in the trillions of dollars these days, and this waste is killing us like it never has before.
2) You are simply insane to say that Pelosi’s problem is the result of a Republican plot. People like you would blame Republicans for your problems if the last Republican on earth had died five hundred years before. Demagoguery is in your blood!
No. Nancy Pelosi is being proven to be a liar based on HER own words and HER own demagoguery and what the CIA – the CIA under liberal Democrat Leon Panetta – have revealed showing her to be lying. The CIA – how many times should I say under Leon Panetta? – said that Pelosi WAS briefed on waterboardings that “HAD been employed” in direct contradiction to her statements.