I'm Sick of Pelosi, Her Sanctimony and Her as Speaker

Marty Peretz is a titan of the left - publisher of The New Republic. When he speaks everyone listens. And he is willing to point out the elephant in the living room that no one else seems to notice.

At his blog at The New Republic

I'm Sick of Pelosi, Her Sanctimony and Her as Speaker; Maybe She Should Hand the Gavel Over to Jane Harman

Read in Saturday's Washington Post the devastating report by Paul Kane about what she did and did not know about waterboarding. Well, my reading is that what she did not know was nothing. 


Nancy Pelosi is one of those Democrats who is trying to keep the ghost of George Bush alive so that his dishonesty and bumptioun continue to deflect from what's going on in Washington now.


You see, it turns out that the C.I.A. did hold a briefing at which the waterboarding of Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein (Abu Zubaida) was discussed. This was in September 2002. Of course, Pelosi was invited but sent a top aide instead. Was she too busy to attend? We are to believe that Michael Sheehy told her nothing of any importance. But Jane Harman, whom left-wing Democrats often characterize as a patsy of the intelligence apparatus, did attend. What's more she wrote to the C.I.A. legal counsel protesting the use of waterboarding as being against American and constitutional norms. And Pelosi herself has admitted knowing that Harman had objected to such procedures.


Every top Democrat is trying to cover her or his ass. Now that they are making such a fuss about the Bush administration having held everything in secret the news that it hadn't is mortifying to the Democrats now in power.