comp.lang.python

Charles Board

5/17/2009 1:02:00 PM

Joe is being played like a big bass fiddle...

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_05/...

There are more than a few annoying angles to the recent Republican
attacks on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, related to the CIA interrogation
briefings she received in 2002 and 2003. Most notably, the GOP's goal
is transparent: don't investigate officials from our team, they're
telling Democrats, or we'll want an investigation of officials on your
team.

With that in mind, Faiz Shakir did a nice job pulling together some Fox
News coverage from this week, in which this very dynamic is discussed
rather candidly. The goal, the reports indicated, is to create a
"Mexican standoff," in which both sides back off in some kind of
mutually-assured-destruction scenario. Looking at accountability for
possible war crimes through this lens seems crazy, but here we are
anyway.

As long as this is the debate, and with the Sunday morning shows likely
to explore this "controversy" in great detail today, it's probably
worth re-emphasizing how pointless it is to make Nancy Pelosi the
villain of the Bush administration torture scandal.

In 2002 and 2003, Pelosi was the oft-ignored House Minority Leader,
with minimal power, and even less influence, over what kind of
interrogation policies the Bush administration used. She was briefed on
the administration's tactics, but according to her, Bob Graham, and a
healthy dose of common sense, officials were far from forthcoming when
it came to details on torture.

It boils down to this: Republicans are demanding to know what Pelosi
knew about the Bush administration's crimes and when she knew it. This
is more important, they argue, than the crimes themselves.

Note that some of the right's criticism is backwards. The Weekly
Standard's Stephen Hayes said on Fox News that Democrats are reluctant
to push the idea of a truth commission because it might produce
evidence that makes Pelosi look bad. In our reality, Pelosi -- who
might seem like she'd want all of this to go away -- is actually the
leading proponent of a truth commission. She's not trying to sweep all
of this under the rug; she's trying to do the opposite, even in the
face of Republican intimidation tactics.

To be sure, there are legitimate questions about the briefings. If
Pelosi was told about torture and failed to raise objections, that
warrants criticism. If there's evidence that Pelosi was less than
candid about what she was told -- there isn't -- that's a political
problem.

But in general, this entire "controversy" is a ridiculous GOP stunt,
which the media is falling for. We've effectively been told that the
only person who should face real scrutiny for the Bush/Cheney torture
scandal is the liberal, powerless, then-House Minority Leader who
opposes torture.

As A.L. noted the other day, "The level of hypocrisy and incoherence it
takes for Republicans to point to Pelosi as being some sort of key
figure in this scandal is astounding. And the fact that the press corps
would latch on to this rather ridiculous diversion is telling."