Nancy Pelosi Can't Keep Her Stories Straight

Most parties involved, except Nancy Pelosi herself, now says that she was thoroughly briefed on the design and employment of enhanced interrogation techniques (or torture if you prefer), and that she should have understood that fact (makes you wonder why she was on the Intelligence Committee if she couldn't understand a briefing by the intelligence community, but that's a separate issue). If she truly believed this to be an immoral action, even if she didn't quite grasp the fact that we had already used waterboarding, she should have objected. It would have been her moral duty as a senior leader. Now she's just burying herself in excuses.

According to ABC: 'ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah in September 2002, according to a report prepared by the Director of National Intelligence’s office and obtained by ABC News. The report, submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee and other Capitol Hill officials Wednesday, appears to contradict Pelosi’s statement last month that she was never told about the use of waterboarding or other special interrogation tactics. Instead, she has said, she was told only that the Bush administration had legal opinions that would have supported the use of such techniques. The report details a Sept. 4, 2002 meeting between intelligence officials and Pelosi, then-House intelligence committee chairman Porter Goss, and two aides. At the time, Pelosi was the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee.'

The NYT reports that: 'The new chart of briefings, prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the first full listing of briefings, appears to call into question the assertion of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she was never told that waterboarding and other methods were used, only that the Central Intelligence Agency believed they were legal and could be used.'

I and many others wrote extensively about Porter Goss' editorial in the Washington Post stating clearly that he and others understood the briefings, and that Pelosi was derelict in her duty (or deficient in her comprehension - which is worse I wonder?) in not stating any objections at the time. Will Pelosi own up and take ownership or will she just keep finding excuses? I'm betting on the latter - she has no courage for the first.