And why is no one in the media talking about the fact that Cheney basically "connected the dots" right back to the former president of the United States, George W. Bush, and said he authorized the torture, not using that word of course?
Bush was directly implicated in authorizing torture by his own VP and this isn't a story worth covering for the American people? Amazing indeed.
lynchie
· 7 months ago
Just watched the Morning Douche with Kit Bond. where they claimed no one in the CIA has ever lied. Have we all forgotten the WMD's no one found. They then dragged out the fact that we torture our own troops in the SEER program so it is not torture. Whether Pelosi knew or not and frankly I am inclined to say she did and that is why she did not want to pursue Bush, Cheney et al, let's get the subject back where it belongs. These people, representing Americans, tortured and ordered detainees transferred to foreign prisons for torture through the redition program which i believe they all knew about. The Congress and Senate care only for themselves and I find it strange that Pelosi waited 6 years to say a word.
Eyeball_Kid
· 7 months ago
How ridiculous can the media stars get? It's the CIA's BUSINESS TO LIE. That's why they and the NSA have a bottomless budget, for Christ's sake! It's to cover their asses! Haven't any of these air heads heard of the phrase, "...on a 'need-to-know basis'"? The CIA has been, from 2000 to 2008, in the business of shilling for the Bush Cabal! Are we crazy to believe that "Where are the WMD" Bush wasn't in the business of lying? Jeez. A reasonable producer would have fired these asshats and told them to find a high school class on critical thinking skills before they'd ever get a job as a door mat. I won't watch any of those idiot programs because it's uneducational. Literally. They are designed to subtly coerce the viewer into being uncritical and to forget what's already been learned. And let's remember WHY a program like Morning Joe is on the air: TO SELL PRODUCTS. That's the ONLY reason.
davidinchelseama
· 7 months ago
On Morning Joe they are saying that she is caught in a lie because first Pelosi said that after her aide was briefed about the use of water boarding, she'd told her aide to tell Jane Harman that she agreed with her protest letter but wouldn't be asking to co-sign it.
NOW she is saying that her side NEVER was told that water boarding was occurring, and the CIA is lying if they say they told her or her people that they were doing this stuff.
Then why did she say she agreed with Harman's letter? That's totally contradictory.
Of course none of this changes the fact that the right is trying to shift the story to Pelosi. The fact is that the Bush/Cheney Administration were the ones making these torture decisions, not Pelosi. THAT SHOULD BE THE FOCUS OF OUR SIDE'S REPSONSE.
Eyeball_Kid
· 7 months ago
How ridiculous can the media stars get? It's the CIA's BUSINESS TO LIE. That's why they and the NSA have a bottomless budget
JoFish
· 7 months ago
Pelosi had the chance to carry/push the Kucinich Impeachment Resolution(s) to the floor of the House and chose not to do so. I have little to now patience for her whining now. Sorry Nancy, you made your bed, enjoy lying in it.
foolme1ns
· 7 months ago
The CIA can't even get its dates straight as to when it briefed members of Congress, because I am sure no one at the CIA keeps anything like a daytimer or anything. And why is the media ignoring the very end of the release that basically said, 'hey this sh*t may or may not be accurate, that's for you guys to decide'. What the hell does that mean???
who's in charge of keeping up with dates of briefings and what was discussed and stuff at the CIA????
I find the whole release more than a bit flimsy to rely on for any kind of accurate information. It seems like a dumbass effort to try to muddy the waters of who knew what and when.
Indigo
· 7 months ago
It's kinda sweet but also kinda naive to pretend that Matt Lauer & Snidekicks are anything other than right wing schills.
KarenMrsLloydRichards
· 7 months ago
Haiku for the Obama Administration (#192):
Say it, haji, NOW! Say there is a Saddam link To 9/11!!
KarenMrsLloydRichards
· 7 months ago
Haiku for the Obama Administration (#193):
That Jew never watched How Mayberry stayed all-white: He don't know the South. . .
HereinDC
· 7 months ago
. Once I saw at the beginning of The Today show that Matt Lauer was doing an "exclusive" interview with that Drew Peterson...
I TURNED the Channel.
Good Grief...Lauer is like Fox News Lite.
caphillprof
· 7 months ago
You will note that David Gregory's program "Meet the Press" is tanking since Gregory assumed the helm. He's not a journalist, he just plays one on television.
I don't pay much attention to local DC television since they are always bogged down on some story out on the fringes of their viewing area. I think it was Channel 9 last night who had a reporter who could not bring herself to say that waterboarding is torture. I can just see the hysteria and lawsuits and umbrage if anybody had the audacity to waterboard her!
Dave of the Jungle
· 7 months ago
Propaganda Parrots are not Journalists.
anastasjoy
· 7 months ago
I'm even more disgusted at the leftie media claiming Pelosi was culpable and is tainted because she didn't SPEAK OUT. D they have any sense of what it would have meant to speak out then? With Bush's popularity riding high and most of the public behind the invasion, the instant firestorm assaulting her for leaking claafiying information, endangering the country and being a traitor would have stuck. This is back when the Republicans simply deliberately misinterpreting a joke you made as being an attack on "the troops" required an apology. Pelosi's career would have been destroyed. She would have effectively become the symbol of leftwing evil that the GOP has been unable to make her into, for all their trying. And in doing so, they probably would have made HER and not the torture an issue and, by poorly timed release of the information when the public was still ßusceptible to fear-mongered, they probably would have made use of torture acceptable and a non-issue. No, there's no way Pelosi having made this public in 2002-2003 would have been good for anyone — except the Bush administration. They would have eaten it up and, being at the height of their power, milked it for all it was worth to seize even more power.
Disgruntled Mod
· 7 months ago
This is pathetic. Pelosi shouldn't have taken a stand on war crimes because Karl Rove would make her political party seem weak on terror? What about doing what's right? I have no doubt Pelosi and lots of other Dems knew these warcrimes were happening and just looked the other way because it wasn't politically popular. They are just as guilty as those who gave the orders to torture.
ObamaTeaBags
· 7 months ago
You might have a point Joe if Pelosi didnt have 6 different versions of what she knew and when she knew it.......But stop being cowards.You would have to be dumb enough to believe the CIA ONLY lied to Pelosi and no one else who was briefed.Thats a littte bit of a stretch dont you think??I mean how long ago was it that Chucky Schumer was saying this:
"And I’d like to interject a note of balance here. There are times when we all get in high dudgeon. We ought to be reasonable about this. I think there are probably very few people in this room or in America who would say that torture should never, ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake. Take the hypothetical: If we knew that there was a nuclear bomb hidden in an American city and we believed that some kind of torture, fairly severe maybe, would give us a chance of finding that bomb before it went off, my guess is most Americans and most senators, maybe all, would say, ‘Do what you have to do.’So it’s easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used. But when you’re in the foxhole, it’s a very different deal."Chuck Schumer
The reality is that Pelosi now has to defend herself because the Obamessiah decided that he could try to score cheap political points by bashing Bush and the CIA.Thankfully both decided to fight back against this garbage...Enough with your excuses regarding Pelosi.She knew they were being waterboarded and only an idiot would believe otherwise.Not one Democrat in Congress has ever objected to waterboarding once they knew it was being used and yet now its an issue??Give me a break you hypocritical morons.........
S_in_Tokyo
· 7 months ago
And can I assume that you, too, are fine with waterboarding? Your "hypothetical" has never happened. Too much television for your own good.
Jophus
· 7 months ago
You realize that in the Schumer quote you use, that the people who are in the "foxhole" while the democrats are sitting in armchairs, are armchair generals? The actual interrogators have been saying that they wouldn't use those meathods.... You know the people who are actually in the "foxhole." When it comes to the "do what you have to do" portion of the quote, those people would pick up the phone and that would be the extent of their actions.... It has been revealed, that the people who would do what is necessary WOULD NOT torture.
Take this hypothetical.... If Obama had authorized torture or been a part of that decision, I would want him on trial too.
The more you write, the more we come to realize what "an idiot would believe." Thanks for that.
scott
· 7 months ago
Let me tell you real quickly why you will never see anyone 'on trial' for torture in this situation. First, you liberals have so diluted the term 'torture' that no one is paying attention to you now. Most people don't consider 'insulting' a terrorist as torture. Or 'scaring' them, or demeaning them, or humiliating them or any of a number of things you guys have tried to pass off as 'torture'. Secondly, Americans are fully aware that the Constitution deems our right to live as the most important and sacred right we have. When a terrorist tries to take away my right to live, he loses his rights, including the right to not be tortured. His rights stop when they come into conflict with my more important right to live. So you will never win the argument that a terrorists' right to not be tortured is greater than my right to not be killed. But hey, if you want to waste your time trying to convince Americans that they don't have a right to live, then keep on whining for your poor, poor, terrorist.
Jophus
· 7 months ago
"Let me tell you." Typical of a republican. You might as well say, your opinion ins't allowed let me tell you how it is.
How does a retarded boy or a cab driver on the other side of the globe effect your right to live? You've diluted the point with so many caveats that your justification is based on what if's including what if this person just lived in the same city as someone who donated money to a terrorist? That is what we did. We went and rounded people up from general areas indiscriminately.
Torture was concisely defined when we executed people for waterboarding in the Bush administrations lifetime. Somehow you think we diluted it? You changed a word and said this word (enhanced....) isn't torture based on semantics. That is exactualy how credit default swaps got around the legislation already in place for insurance and we are fucked. SAME actions by the SAME administration fucking us twice.
I can use your argument against my right to live with your logic which condemns people at the Nth degree. You waging a war on these people for your life, breeds more terrorism and anti-americanism across the world and it endangers my right to live because a terrorist might bomb us with motivation from your support. I could also use meathods of enhanced interrogation on you to try and establish my link in court. This is all what your party has been doing.
Most of all, people have died at Gitmo. Certainly enhanced interrogation that results in death is considered fucking torture.
Your fucked up ideology is killing REAL innocent people. For what? illogical peace of mind? You've killed over a million people in Iraq, and can't even tell us why we went to war there in the first place. Now call me a terrorist again. I want everyone in jail who has taken away people's right to live. Including Obama if need be.
charlie
· 7 months ago
You are the only sane and sensible blogger here
HelenRainier
· 7 months ago
They only hear what they want to hear -- Selective Heaing.
larkohio
· 7 months ago
The Bush administration lied about so many things! They did it then, and they do it now. I think they would have been more than capable of lying to Nancy Pelosi. They lied to us, didn't they?
Gridlock
· 7 months ago
I'm sorry John, I never have and will never buy the "misled into war" argument. The rest of the planet knew it was an effing crock. The rest of the planet was wondering why Bush was moving billions of dollars in military materiel an personnel to the middle east if not to wage war. Nobody moves billions of dollars of man and machine to turn around and walk away! Come on!
Nobody bought the aluminum tubes or Nigerian yellowcake crap either. Powell sold his soul to push that pile of nonsense that was discounted immediately after!
While FOX was spending thousands on spiffy new whooshy ass-kicking graphics for its breathless 'countdown to war', the rest of the planet was wondering "Why is nobody asking them to PROVE Saddam had weapons? Why are they ignoring the UN's own weapons inspectors?"
Nobody was misled unless they were exceptionally impaired from a mental standpoint. You'd have to be Terri freakin Schiavo to not know it was a bunch of bull. I will not accept that the people in the highest echelons of power were misled about ANYTHING.
They were cowardly and politically opportunistic. That's all.
Please stop repeating that tired and worn out lie.
Jophus
· 7 months ago
I agree with your position (see my rant), but I just wanted to point out that John didn't write this. Joe did.
Gridlock
· 7 months ago
Quiet, Smithers!
(hadn't had his morning coffee yet)
Jophus
· 7 months ago
I thought when I opened this thread that everyone was going to be at her defense. I'm really genuinely pleased to see that this is sort of a wedge issue.
I don't watch tv so I don't know how intense the shit storm is for Nancy, but as an uber progressive with socialist tendencies I say that we need trials over torturing and murdering innocent people and if it takes her being on trial too, so be it. She is a politician and this is politics at its best. She's a big girl and new what she was getting into when she took the job. If she is innocent then the court will vindicate her. I don't know about everyone else, but I've never been fond of her anyways.
Torturers belong in jail, and I'm not willing to support the game of partisan politics on this issue. If she were a good leader she would welcome the trials for the sake of the country. If she were an honest person, she wouldn't have the mantra of looking forward..... with the small exception of holding press confrences when someone is talking about HER past. She hasn't taken action to protect innocent people, why should we do her the favor?
This isn't a game. Don't play along.
shell
· 7 months ago
What also alarmed me was the questions -- in an incredulous voice -- was Pelosi actually saying the CIA LIED??? OMG! How could ANYONE say the CIA lied???? (Of course, Nancy couldn't just say, in plain English: "The CIA LIED." She had to say "misled.") I can't be too hard on her for this, though -- if she were any more forceful, she might wake up dead one morning.
Here we go again -- the "news" shows I have seen are about 3 days behind the blogs.
Jophus
· 7 months ago
Those photos started to leak, despite Obama's wishes.... Thank god.
I am glad too. That way all the liberals can get to see the torture pictures. Of course, these are the same people who stop by a car accident hoping to see a head roll by their car so they have a good story to tell their neighbors. Nothing like a good train wreck to get the heart pumping....
And maybe if you complain enough, no one will ask you how to fix the issue. After all, if we fix the issue, there are no more pictures to see...
Jophus
· 7 months ago
Fix it as in the law or the people we are holding as war criminals?
Cindy
· 7 months ago
Watch the left hand while the right hand is doing the"good thing". It's always a better show and most of us don't even see it coming. oh the great illusionist- attactive and "cunning".
As though this wasn't planned
Asterix
· 7 months ago
If Ms. Pelosi is serious about being misled, let's see her do something about it--such as seeing that the CIA's budget is cut by two-thirds. She may not succeed, but the message that "you don't screw with Congress" should come through loud and clear.
Hannah
· 7 months ago
Shocking!!! The CIA involved in something illegal and lying about it??? ::cough Iran-Contra cough::
The press is like a kitten - show it something shiny (Pelosi's accusations) and it will chase it forever, while the 800 pound gorilla in the room (Cheney's crime of instituting torture) is ignored.
Dan
· 7 months ago
Gee, show the press that a republician is doing something wrong and they will hound you to all end. But if a Democrat gets caught in a lie, we should just shut up about it. That's liberals for you...
Jophus
· 7 months ago
Unless it is about something as simple as a god damned blow job, then you think they somehow can't continue to work and assemble and proceed with a fucking censure and impeachment.
You tortured and murdered innocent people. That is definately not that the level of a blowjob.
Bill
· 7 months ago
What us so called "idiots" do remember is that a typical liberal is by definition born an idiot and remains an idiot through their adult life. That is why there comes a point where we no longer care or listen to what you have to say.
wyn
· 7 months ago
Gee, the head of the CIA at that time was a Clinton apointee. Then, the news and lots of those committee's in Congress have also mentioned that she was told fully. Now she tries to change her story.
The Dems look more and more like the same as the Republican disease they so despise. It all seems to be ok when a Democrat lies, but not when a Republican.
Get over the partisan craze and stand up for this country.
wyn
· 7 months ago
Obama and Holder are refusing to uphold the law of the US that they swore to uphold if they believe it is legally torture and they do not prosecute. End of Story.
Torture is not a crime that you accuse anyone of without prosecuting it and dare to believe people are going to respect you.
The investigation should be complete and Peolisi and others should be investigated and tried as well.
Fran
· 7 months ago
and Bill Clinton also said there were weapons of mass destruction! Do you think he lied too?
PJ
· 7 months ago
If Pelosi had to sign a nondisclosure order to hear that they were going to use torture then she can not be held responsible for not objecting in public without divulging secret information. How is that legal and why is she being raked over the coals by the republicans? Cheney was keeping everything secret and classified so that no one could object without breaking the law. Pelosi may have had her hands tied up on this. If she was lied to about torture by the Bush administration lackeys, then she can not be held responsible for it. The Bush administration was the perpetrator of this torture, they alone should bear the consequences. And if other republicans were briefed on this, why did they not raise the issue? Lets hear who they were. I wan to know so that they can try and explain why they were for using torture.
All Comments
Bush was directly implicated in authorizing torture by his own VP and this isn't a story worth covering for the American people? Amazing indeed.
NOW she is saying that her side NEVER was told that water boarding was occurring, and the CIA is lying if they say they told her or her people that they were doing this stuff.
Then why did she say she agreed with Harman's letter? That's totally contradictory.
Of course none of this changes the fact that the right is trying to shift the story to Pelosi. The fact is that the Bush/Cheney Administration were the ones making these torture decisions, not Pelosi. THAT SHOULD BE THE FOCUS OF OUR SIDE'S REPSONSE.
who's in charge of keeping up with dates of briefings and what was discussed and stuff at the CIA????
I find the whole release more than a bit flimsy to rely on for any kind of accurate information. It seems like a dumbass effort to try to muddy the waters of who knew what and when.
Say it, haji, NOW!
Say there is a Saddam link
To 9/11!!
That Jew never watched
How Mayberry stayed all-white:
He don't know the South. . .
Once I saw at the beginning of The Today show that Matt Lauer was doing an "exclusive" interview with that Drew Peterson...
I TURNED the Channel.
Good Grief...Lauer is like Fox News Lite.
I don't pay much attention to local DC television since they are always bogged down on some story out on the fringes of their viewing area. I think it was Channel 9 last night who had a reporter who could not bring herself to say that waterboarding is torture. I can just see the hysteria and lawsuits and umbrage if anybody had the audacity to waterboard her!
"And I’d like to interject a note of balance here. There are times when we all get in high dudgeon. We ought to be reasonable about this. I think there are probably very few people in this room or in America who would say that torture should never, ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake. Take the hypothetical: If we knew that there was a nuclear bomb hidden in an American city and we believed that some kind of torture, fairly severe maybe, would give us a chance of finding that bomb before it went off, my guess is most Americans and most senators, maybe all, would say, ‘Do what you have to do.’So it’s easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used. But when you’re in the foxhole, it’s a very different deal."Chuck Schumer
The reality is that Pelosi now has to defend herself because the Obamessiah decided that he could try to score cheap political points by bashing Bush and the CIA.Thankfully both decided to fight back against this garbage...Enough with your excuses regarding Pelosi.She knew they were being waterboarded and only an idiot would believe otherwise.Not one Democrat in Congress has ever objected to waterboarding once they knew it was being used and yet now its an issue??Give me a break you hypocritical morons.........
Take this hypothetical.... If Obama had authorized torture or been a part of that decision, I would want him on trial too.
The more you write, the more we come to realize what "an idiot would believe." Thanks for that.
How does a retarded boy or a cab driver on the other side of the globe effect your right to live? You've diluted the point with so many caveats that your justification is based on what if's including what if this person just lived in the same city as someone who donated money to a terrorist? That is what we did. We went and rounded people up from general areas indiscriminately.
Torture was concisely defined when we executed people for waterboarding in the Bush administrations lifetime. Somehow you think we diluted it? You changed a word and said this word (enhanced....) isn't torture based on semantics. That is exactualy how credit default swaps got around the legislation already in place for insurance and we are fucked. SAME actions by the SAME administration fucking us twice.
I can use your argument against my right to live with your logic which condemns people at the Nth degree. You waging a war on these people for your life, breeds more terrorism and anti-americanism across the world and it endangers my right to live because a terrorist might bomb us with motivation from your support. I could also use meathods of enhanced interrogation on you to try and establish my link in court. This is all what your party has been doing.
Most of all, people have died at Gitmo. Certainly enhanced interrogation that results in death is considered fucking torture.
Your fucked up ideology is killing REAL innocent people. For what? illogical peace of mind? You've killed over a million people in Iraq, and can't even tell us why we went to war there in the first place. Now call me a terrorist again. I want everyone in jail who has taken away people's right to live. Including Obama if need be.
Nobody bought the aluminum tubes or Nigerian yellowcake crap either. Powell sold his soul to push that pile of nonsense that was discounted immediately after!
While FOX was spending thousands on spiffy new whooshy ass-kicking graphics for its breathless 'countdown to war', the rest of the planet was wondering "Why is nobody asking them to PROVE Saddam had weapons? Why are they ignoring the UN's own weapons inspectors?"
Nobody was misled unless they were exceptionally impaired from a mental standpoint. You'd have to be Terri freakin Schiavo to not know it was a bunch of bull. I will not accept that the people in the highest echelons of power were misled about ANYTHING.
They were cowardly and politically opportunistic. That's all.
Please stop repeating that tired and worn out lie.
(hadn't had his morning coffee yet)
I don't watch tv so I don't know how intense the shit storm is for Nancy, but as an uber progressive with socialist tendencies I say that we need trials over torturing and murdering innocent people and if it takes her being on trial too, so be it. She is a politician and this is politics at its best. She's a big girl and new what she was getting into when she took the job. If she is innocent then the court will vindicate her. I don't know about everyone else, but I've never been fond of her anyways.
Torturers belong in jail, and I'm not willing to support the game of partisan politics on this issue. If she were a good leader she would welcome the trials for the sake of the country. If she were an honest person, she wouldn't have the mantra of looking forward..... with the small exception of holding press confrences when someone is talking about HER past. She hasn't taken action to protect innocent people, why should we do her the favor?
This isn't a game. Don't play along.
Here we go again -- the "news" shows I have seen are about 3 days behind the blogs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/north...
And maybe if you complain enough, no one will ask you how to fix the issue. After all, if we fix the issue, there are no more pictures to see...
As though this wasn't planned
The press is like a kitten - show it something shiny (Pelosi's accusations) and it will chase it forever, while the 800 pound gorilla in the room (Cheney's crime of instituting torture) is ignored.
You tortured and murdered innocent people. That is definately not that the level of a blowjob.
The Dems look more and more like the same as the Republican disease they so despise. It all seems to be ok when a Democrat lies, but not when a Republican.
Get over the partisan craze and stand up for this country.
Torture is not a crime that you accuse anyone of without prosecuting it and dare to believe people are going to respect you.
The investigation should be complete and Peolisi and others should be investigated and tried as well.