Mark Mazzetti, the Gray Lady’s Grammar-Impaired Spook Stenographer
C’mon, NYT, don’t you remember how embarrassing it was when Judy Miller was playing warmonger stenographer in 2002? Then why are you guys whoring yourself out to serve disinformation again?
I’m speaking of this post on Nancy Pelosi’s press conference spelling out reaaaalllyyyy slowly that the CIA lied when it briefed Pelosi and Goss on torture in 2002. When I first looked at the post, the headline said something like, "Pelosi says CIA misled Congress" (sorry, I didn’t get a screen cap; I should have known). Now it has shifted its focus back onto the fact that a Pelosi staffer–not the CIA, as required by law–informed Pelosi that CIA was in the torture business in 2003.
And with its update–including reporting from the NYT’s spook guy, Mark Mazzetti–the NYT claims that Porter Goss refutes Nancy Pelosi’s statement.
According to the C.I.A. records, Ms. Pelosi attended the Sept. 4 briefing about the agency’s interrogation techniques with her Republican counterpart, Representative Porter J. Goss of Florida. Based on agency notes from the briefing, the two lawmakers were told the specific techniques “that had been employed” on Abu Zubaydah.
By then, that C.I.A. already used a number of harsh methods on Mr. Zubaydah, including waterboarding.
The C.I.A. records do not list the individual techniques that lawmakers were told about. However, in an op-ed last month, Mr. Goss said he remembers being told specifically about waterboarding during the September 2002 briefing.
“I am slack jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as “waterboarding” were never mentioned,” Mr. Goss wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
Mark, Mark, Mark. I spelled this all out here, back when it became apparent to anyone with a command of the English language that Goss’ dispute with Pelosi had nothing to do with her contention (which was clear even then) that the CIA hadn’t told Congress that it had already been using waterboarding. Rather, Goss argued that Pelosi should have known that the CIA was going to use waterboarding given that they told Pelosi they had gotten approval for it.
Now, that’s clear even from the excerpt you’ve included in the post. But here, I’ll give you the whole excerpt so you can begin to understand how the English language works so you won’t be so susceptible to Porter’s spin next time.
In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA’s "High Value Terrorist Program," including the development of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and what those techniques were.
[snip]
Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned.
Now Goss asserts five things with respect to that first briefing in 2002:
- He and Pelosi were briefed on the CIA’s High Value Terrorist Program
- He and Pelosi were briefed on the development of EITs
- He and Pelosi were briefed on what those techniques were
- Waterboarding was mentioned
- Those techniques–including, presumably, waterboarding–"were to actually be employed"
Pelosi agrees that she and Goss were briefed on the program and, generally, that they discussed techniques. She even agrees that waterboarding was mentioned; the phrase "waterboarding was not being employed" certainly counts as a mention of waterboarding.
But see what number 5 doesn’t say? It doesn’t say, "those techniques had already been employed." "Were to be employed," a prospective use of waterboarding, not "had been employed," a past use of waterboarding.
Now, Mark. If you want to continue doing Porter’s bidding, you’re going to have to go back to him–I’m sure you’ve got him on speed-dial?–and get a stronger statement from him. But as things stand today, Porter Goss’ statement is completely consistent with Nancy Pelosi’s. The CIA, when it briefed Goss and Pelosi in 2002, did not tell them they had already been using waterboarding with Abu Zubaydah.
As a spook stenographer, Mark, I’m sure you’re familiar with the National Security Act, but if you need a primer, why not read about it on the pages of the NYT? You’ll see that the National Security Act requires the Administration inform Congress–arguably, the entire intelligence committees–about their covert ops. Requires. But instead, what happened here is that CIA took up torturing, and then, when they "briefed" Pelosi and Goss on it in September 2002, they didn’t tell them they were already doing it. They didn’t get around to revealing that until five months later–and six months after they had gotten into the torture business.
That is a violation of the law–some might even consider it news. But not the NYT!!! Nope, the NYT is going to keep recycling Porter Goss’ carefully parsed statements and imply they refute Nancy Pelosi when they don’t. The NYT is going to obsess over the fact that a staffer told Nancy Pelosi something that CIA should have told her almost a year earlier.
But the NYT is not, apparently, going to tell its readers that the CIA broke the law.
And P.S. Mark, if you’re worried about your job, you ought to be!
EW, aren’t headlines usually chosen by the editor? If so, is Keller once again caught aiding and abetting misleading reporting? Just want to make sure that Keller gets the credit he is due for his endless tolerance of the propandists in his shop.
Dunno who does the headlines for the blogs, though it is probably an editor. I do find it mighty suspicious, though that they shifted focus for the post at the same time as putting in a bunch of Republican BS and this porter goss fellatio.
Oh I don’t find it suspicious at all. I have no doubt it is a concerted effort, but that’s my point really. Any editor worth their salt would have ixnayed a stunt like this by Mazzetti on the spot, but they didn’t. And that is why I stopped reading the NYT years ago (even though I was one of the 3 people who actually forked over $ for their Times Select thing — I’m happy to pay a subscription for a worthwhile publication… like yours ; )
Despite the fact that the NYT has occasionally given Marcy credit for her work in the past, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that they’re not going to tell their readers about THIS post.
Erm, they gots blog. We post it there, over, and over, and over and over . . .
If that’s kewl with FDL and Mz Wheeler . . . .
Today has been incredible here in Da Lake.
Marcy, Jeff Kaye and Spencer back to back to back, and not Marcy again.
And Mz. Wheeler, this post is what I call GOD DAMN! That’s Taking To The Belly Of The Beast!
Way to call shit for what it is, ma’am . . . *G* *HATTIP*
I’ve been a loyal NYTimes reader for over a decade, and it is truly sad to see it failing so spectacularly these days on the exact kind of important issues it used to cover well. At the end of its current death spiral, I’m sure all of the obit’s will blame the internet and the no-longer-viable newspaper business model. They should also include as a factor just how poorly they are connecting the dots these days.
Keep up the good work Marcy, and congrats on your recent award.
Marcy, you may not have gotten a screen-grab of the original title of that post, but the software used by The Caucus to set up their blogs captured the original title quite nicely and put it in the URL for you: thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/pelosi-cia-misled-congress-over-waterboarding/?ref=global-home. Even if they go back later to change the title of the post, the URL remains the same.
Given the way that software likely works, it strips out punctuation and puts everything in lowercase letters, so the original headline would have been something like this:
Pelosi: CIA Misled Congress over Waterboarding
Nice catch, Peterr.
Based on the URL structure, I’ll bet they are using WordPress or a copycat as the platform for their blogs. Just look at the URL of this post by emptywheel and you’ll see the same structure: http:// subdomain.domain.com / year / month / date / hed as originally entered by ??
The question before us: who enters the copy into the publishing platform? a production assistant, a lower level editor, the reporter?
And who changed the hed? Hello, editorial staff…
OK I’m usually the one preaching editors and producers running to the bidding of the corporate command; that and keeping the advertisers happy and the ratings consistent. But I don’t get this. Are Mazzetti and/or Keller ideologically committed to Cheney & Co? Or is this a business decision? Or…what? I don’t get it. Makes no sense.
Mazzetti is likely just seduced by being a spook stenographer. Seriously, I had one of the intell reporters covering the Libby trial about having fallen in love with his sources–he admitted spook writers are particularly susceptible because of the whole covert biz.
Yeah, it’s probably an editor and not Mazzetti; many of the trad med folks I’ve rubbed shoulders with in online media world were not used to providing their own heds/subheds, often relied on others to do it.
And heds/subheds can be a bone of contention between editorial team and management.
Mazzetti should be screaming at somebody, though, for misrepresenting his copy; given the hed on it now, I wouldn’t bother reading it, assuming it was yet more of the same we’ve seen for a couple of weeks.
And managememt is obviously not operating to make a buck: why would they run with a hed that’s not news but more of the same, unless they really didn’t want people to read the copy?
Certainly makes one wonder if NYT is a legitimate business if it doesn’t care about traffic…
Money.
So sad, but true.
Didn’t it use to be true that the NYT was regarded as *the standard* of excellence in the use of English as well as in journalistic standards? Or was that a wistful dream from my adolescence? Or maybe some NYT advertisement?
Lo, how the mighty have fallen.
BTW, for some reason, formatting tools aren’t working for me right now.
Bob in HI
who put Benzedrine in ew’s beamish ???
And totally OT, from CREW:
AAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
11 Dimensional Chess my ass.
Greg Craig to the rescue again, making the world safe for unlimited executive power.
Man oh man, what can we do to get Obama to dump that guy??? He is undermining everything Obama represented in his campaign all for the sake of defending “the institution of the Presidency”, a completely made up job description by the execrable President Level.
I expect an honorary membership in the Repug party awarded to him anyday now.
And the Repugs official propaganda arm, Faux News, is working their spin machine:
The Repug spin machine is in overdrive because Politico spins it too:
Hoyer questions Pelosi’s CIA charge
Jeebus fucking christ.
Now they’re making something of Hoyer–WHO WAS NEVER EVER BRIEFED ON THE FUCING PROGRAM–not commenting on something he knows nothing about?!?!?!
Jeebus.
Shoot me. Our media is corrupt.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.
Regardless of how far out in the wilderness the Repugs go, they still keep their message machine well oiled like a bloody chainsaw.
And that differs from Boehner, who was flapping his lips earlier, please tell how??
Yes, but AIPAC was briefed on the program. Close enough.
Looks to me like much ado about nothing. Hoyer was not in the loop, was he? How the heck do they get from “I have no idea of that. I don’t have a belief of that nature because I have no basis on which to base such a belief,” to “House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer does not vouch for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s accusation against the CIA.”?? Of course, that lead is technically correct: Hoyer “does not vouch” because he “has no idea.” But they’re trying to make like this is some kind of disagreement. This looks like Karl Rove spin, to me: a statement that is factually true, but contstructed so as to cast aspersions against someone. Why do the media fall for this?
Bob in HI
That says it all! If it passes the spin machine’s lawyers’ libel test, it’s all gravy!
And more Repug spin machine via a Scrippsnews editorial:
Almost exactly the words that Peggy Noonan used today on “Morning Joe”. (Oh why do I feel a bmaz insult coming b/c I’ve seen “Morning Joe”. Gotta keep an eye on what topics they’re covering for Chrissakes.)
I’d bet they are written Repug talking points emailed and faxed to their propaganda outlets.
meek MIKKAs designer shoes…….wretch
And totally on topic with the subject of this EW post, here’s another Mark Mazzetti clone from Politics Daily:
And a related note at the end of the article:
(My Bold)
Do tell!
EW, I bet we could make a fortune with a Remedial Journalism 101 course.
MSNBC Matthews and Ed pounding on can we get back to the issue of who rewrote the torture laws and who ordered the torturing
Who broke the law.
Jonathon Alter came on after Hoyer was on MSNBC EDs and said “you guys are in charge get this investigation going”
Alter also pointed out that as soon as Pelosi and the Republicans in those briefings should have left and pushed back against this aggressively
Jonathan Alter? He of the “please let us torture them psychologically?“
Holy shit, he’s showing his face to talk about this stuff???
Somewhere in recent months, he appears to have had a ‘come to Jesus’ moment. My attitude = “Come on dowwwwn, Jonathon!”
When some of these reporters figure out who’s punked them, and how badly — basically feeding them lies that are costing their livlihoods — you gotta expect at some point they get a lot more focused. Here’s hoping.
Uh, yeah, if you have a come to jesus moment, you don’t lecture others who were doing more than you were.
Olbermann kicked Alter off his show for a good while.
A while back Alter was on the Diane Rehm show and was ripping political blogs up. Would really like to watch him eat his words on this one. Alter was all got get them tonight.
Between the CIA’s sloppily botched report on torture briefings, and the clear available evidence that torture was ongoing before the CIA tells us it ever met with Congressmen for the first time (to tell them nothing), it almost makes me wonder if someone at the Agency is actually trying to help out our poor duped Reps.
OT: Chrysler has given 1/4 of their Dealers the bad news –
LAT story
EW are you watching KO? I think he’s a fan of yours. He’s been working his way through all of your posts today.
Rachel and KO and their teams obviously spend a great deal of time at EW’s
They probably do and will one day have Marcy as a talking head – GO MARCY
OK, now they fixed it. They have even taken Mark Mazzetti off as author. The article still has the language that Goss “claimed that waterboarding was mentioned” but makes clear that Pelosi also said that waterboarding was mentioned but that they did not tell her it was being used: link
Also seen: Greg Craig is said to be in charge of SCOTUS search. I groaned.
Well, it seems only fitting that BushCo would go down in a finale that starts with the Wurlitzer Breaking.
Access Journalism was a Major Feature of BushCo’s Plan to Control the Agenda, and it – and its practitioners – badly need to be called-out for their Shameless Flatbacking – because We deserve Better – We deserve Principled Journalism that tells US the facts, in a balanced context.
The NYT – and the rest of the Print Newspaper Brothel – whose numbers are falling even faster than Mazzetti does for Dick – don’t seem to realize that Whores Don’t Get Respect.
With the Collapse of Crony Print Media, there is the Recognition of True Journalism in the Blogosphere – with emptywheel and FDL standing out, imvho, as Sparkling Diamonds of Free Speech, Accurate Reportage and Insightful Analysis.
So, Mark, whatcha gonna do when the Red Light District Lady closes down, and you can’t turn any more Word Tricks?
Watching this story tonight on the network news. One of the networks also said Porter Goss contradicted Pelosi – I believe it was ABC nightly news. So I have to wonder what they are reading.
Ironically, Nancy Pelosi has also not said that the CIA broke the law. Why is that? And why, at the very least, is she not demanding a special prosecutor to investigate these violation of the law? “Impeachment is off the table” isn’t the statement of someone who cares about the law or torture victims…it is, however, the statement of someone who cares more about political power, personally and for her political party, than the rule of law. A “truth commission” is about not holding anyone accountable, frankly. It’s about saying “Hey, mistakes were made and lets move on”. It’s saying that the system as it now stands, a system that appears to be very similar to the political system seven years ago, is not morally and ideologically bankrupt and not devoid sustainability.
I’m sure will start hearing arguments about all the big problems that face the US and the great distraction having the Congress investigate the CIA and Bush Administrations and administrator crimes then would have now. But, frankly, it’s pretty obvious that it isn’t just these folks, those evil Bushies, who are guilty of falling down and possibly breaking American treaty obligations and laws…it is also those folks who looked the other way…who decided that in order to have political power later they needed to be silent while a war was ginned up. Nancy is reaping that particular profit now it would seem…and trying to hold on to that power. This is the genius of the Bush regime…that is, they were able to pigeon hole their opponents so well that they wouldn’t or couldn’t be effective later in a ferretting out all the criminality and evil that occurred during the Bush Regime…thereby perpetuating the maladies that that same regime blossomed all over our Republics political and economic body. It is likely we are headed not just for a great economic depression here, it is also scary that the leaders of this country prefer to parse and obfuscate than face the truth of the issues and direction of the country before them. They’d rather maintain a system that is more and more obviously broken, not fix that system, to maintain power for just a little longer, to perpetuate a system that got them to that power over the dead, over the tortured, and over the foreclosed. It’s a sad state of affairs, Madame Speaker! A sad state of affairs…
It sure is looking that way. Heh.
And Marcy- I’ve pointed out before that the CIA Summary also never says that it employed any of the EITs on Abu Zubaydah. In a rather odd description of what that briefing involved it says:
That’s either an incredibly redundant sentence, or one carefully phrased to conceal that the discussion was on PAST EMPLOYMENT of EITs was on individuals other than Abu Zubaydah; while a set of EITs, approved by the “authorities”, had been issued for upcoming use on Abu Zubaydah.
Because if it was already discussing the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah then why not simply say
Abu Zubaydah…past tense..already water boarded. But the way it’s written actually comports well with what Pelosi has said. In addition, the placement of the discussion of EITs into two sections would seem to suggest a distinction between those ALREADY employed, and those prospectively planned to be used on Abu Zubaydah…i.e. Here’s what we want to do- here’s the legal justification for doing it- here’s the stuff we’ve done before and why we want to up the ante on this guy.
An excellent breakdown of what was actually written!
corporate medias #1 job….muddy the waters,parce words,confuse obfuscate disinform hurried and hasseled American electorate
My sense of this whole thing is that the truth is seeping out and the time line is being established and the evidence is irrefutable that there was some serious lying and probably illegal activity from the white house right down to the grunts in the field who participated in torture with the OLC running some sort of CYA operation to create the cognitive dissonance they needed to prevaricate and kill.
what a fascinating grain of sand you have found to minutely examine here . . . certainly waaay more interesting than your Progressive Leader’s recent decisions to cover up the Bush/Cheney torture regime, indeed to continue and extend it via the travesty of Military Tribunals.
lots of grains of sand to be parsed over at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..03783.html
thats a safe link, its at the HuffPo!
but hey, someone’s gotta do the pushback to protect the great Progressive Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, that is sure waaay more important than following up on an Obama DOD spokesperson’s assertion that the Taliban bombed their own people, with white phosphorous, even!
Looks like torture has finally reached the flash point.
Having the internet aflame to this extent is new – and scary. It’s like everyone has a fever.
Americans need to vomit this up.
Some dark riot is bubbling. Is Obama paying attention?
He’d better say something, quick.
They’re trying to take down Pelosi. She’s sending too many “for the people” bills to the Senate.
Marcy, Your name and Mazzetti’s are mentioned by Eric Alterman in this weeks The Nation. Alterman says that you and a handful of others are real journalists and Broder keeps his eyes wide shut.
How many years ago should Broder have retired?
30 or more?
Something like that.
Well, Broder was a cheerleader for LBJ and the Viet Nam War war; he was a cheerleader for Nixon; he was a cheerleader for Iran Contra Players; he was in favor of impeaching Clinton for lying about the BJ, and he is a advocate for bygones wrt Dubya’s Torture Players.
The Dean Broder is a polemicist. Broder is no journalist.
Heh. I didn’t follow these folks in years gone by but sounds like Broder is a suck up to power, which didn’t include Clinton, since he went out of his way to undermine his own power.
Broder wanted to forgive and forget all except Clinton’s super-important, life-shattering BJ. Wars, Lies about wars, arms dealing with Iran, drug trading in Central America, assassinations, spying on Americans, torture – all worthy of bygones. Clinton’s BJ not.
Makes sense, right?
I know I am morally outraged (about all the things Broder is not).
Dan Choi seems to be tonight’s subject. Not only TDS, but toss to local NYC news before I switched channels.
With editors like Bill Keller and Andrew Rosenthal and a publisher like Pinch Sulzberger, this has got to be a rhetorical question, right?
When I read these news reports about how Porter Goss says this or that about what the CIA information meant, I wonder why they rarely mention that Porter Goss went on to head the CIA under W. Spookdom being what it is, how can we assume that these notes now appearing about the briefings and vouched for by Goss are legitimate. We need a little more paranoia here, kids.
oldswede
Marcy’s point about what Goss said doesn’t capture what I at least remember Pelosi saying about this matter.
My strong impression was that Pelosi had said that she was only told about the potential, and only hypothetical use of waterboarding in the Sept 2002 briefing. That is a very different matter from being told that waterboarding was actually going to be used — which was what Goss is saying in his excerpt — “were to actually be employed”.
There’s all the difference in the world between those statements. While it’s true that if the CIA didn’t tell Pelosi that it had already used waterboarding, then it was failing at its legal and moral obligations. But as far as Pelosi’s own actions — and that is how the issue comes up — there’s essentially no moral difference between her hearing that it was actually going to be used, that there was a definite plan, presumably in the near future, to use it, and her hearing that it had already been used. In both cases, she should have expressed her immediate protest. Indeed, if anything, her hearing that it had not yet been used but was going to be used in the near future should have made it more urgent to issue a protest, to stop it before it began.
If, on the other hand, it was mentioned just a hypothetical, a thing that might possibly be done, then her obligation to protest it was somewhat less, especially if, as I recollect Pelosi’s original account went, the notion was that she expected to be briefed again before it might actually be adopted, so that she could give her input.
In any case, there’s a very big difference between saying something is actually going to happen and saying it might happen.
I of course don’t pretend to know whose account, Goss’s or Pelosi’s, is correct here, but they certainly are differing on this crucial point.
Dr. Johnson would say Marcy Wheeler isn’t the greatest of journalists simply because she is not the first. While I was reading the NYT piece I also reacted like a conditioned dog salivating to go next to see if Marcy had responded (yet). It’s beautiful to behold, what she can do (Tiger Woods is my Runner-Up).
Anyway, the Times piece isn’t about the briefings, it’s about torturing Pelosi, saying her “tenure” is already weakened.
As I read Jonathan Turley’s account of Pelosi’s statements as to what she heard in the briefing (or perhaps in any of the briefings), her original claim, according to him, was that she had indeed only heard about a merely hypothetical use of waterboarding, not a planned use.
Apparently she started admitting to more than that when confronted by certain documents, as Turley describes.
As it turns out, Turley makes much the same point that I did: there’s not exactly a big moral difference between hearing that waterboarding has already happened, and saying nothing, and hearing that it is about to happen, and saying nothing.
She does seem to be engaged in a considerable amount of dissembling here.
“…there’s not exactly a big moral difference between hearing that waterboarding has already happened, and saying nothing, and hearing that it is about to happen, and saying nothing.”
What about the big Criminal Difference?
Imagine, you hear a Confession that a Murder has happened vs. you hear Talk about a future Murder?
You hear from the Murderer, a member of your ‘team’, that he has Committed Murder vs. you hear the other ‘team’ talking about a future Murder?
Does it still seem to be not exactly a big difference in the Level of Moral Obligation/Complicity between those two positions?
I have no idea what you’re getting at here.
Look, if it is Pelosi’s obligation, in performing her Congressional oversight, to object to acts that are illegal and/or immoral, she has a clear duty to do so after such an act has been performed, as well as before such an act is performed. Indeed, as I had argued, her duty would seem to be only greater to do so if she knows in advance that it will be performed, because she can do something to prevent it.
What’s hard about this? Does Congressional oversight entail zero responsibility to speak up against criminal acts? Is that what you’re arguing?
We’re getting closer.
“Does Congressional oversight entail zero responsibility to speak up against criminal acts?”
I think we can both agree that Congressional Oversight does entail a responsibility to speak up against criminal acts.
Where we are disjointed is over the issue of What constitutes ‘knowing about’ a Criminal Act and ’speaking up.’
So, first – the Criminal Act: Bush Waterboarded Zubaydah in August ‘02 – Statutorily, that’s Torture and a War Crime – without Properly Informing Congress (as per the National Security Act.)
In Sept. ‘02, Bush didn’t say he had Waterboarded Zubaydah to Goss and Pelosi – only that he had DoJ Opinions that said he could Waterboard in the future. That was the One and Only Briefing Pelosi had.
So, as EW points out, Bush didn’t tell Congress about the Waterboarding until Feb. ‘03 – when he may have told Harman that he Waterboarded Zubaydah, that it was Effective, and that he had OLC Opinions that said it was Legal.
Harman lodged a protest, as best she could, under the Rules of Secrecy – which Pelosi – who found out about the Waterboarding second hand from a staffer – agreed with.
When Rockefeller found out about the Waterboarding, he asked to review the Legal Support for what was done, and was turned down.
So, the Dems appear to have Done the Right Thing – as best they could – right when they found out about Bush’s Waterboarding.
Your Reps, otoh, from the info on the Member Briefing Report appear to have been Explicitly told about Bush’s War Crimes, told it was Legal and Effective – despite destroying Zelikow’s dissenting opinion and possibly others – and then Enthusiastically Supported it.
So, to recap: Pelosi wasn’t ever told by Bush that he Waterboarded Zubaydah – she got it 5 months later from a staffer secondhand, and then she agreed with Harman’s Protest. Similarly, Rockefeller protested.
Your guys, however, show every sign of having gone along with Bush’s War Crimes and Torture – even though Bush Waterboarded Zubaydah *on his own* without informing Congress – from the time they found out about it all the way to today.
So, rather than Attacking Pelosi – why not Join US in Bringing Bush and Cheney to Justice for Committing the War Crime of Waterboarding Zubaydah – without properly telling Congress about it?
Could it be because the Republicans are Complicit with Bush and Cheney in their Torture and War Crimes?
Why on earth do you declare that Pelosi discharged her responsibilities to object to a war crime when the evidence shows, and she admits, she did absolutely nothing concrete?
I don’t even know how one can seriously assert that Harman did what was necessary, given the circumstances. Her letter of “protest” was about the weakest possible tea. There was absolutely nothing in it to say that she thought the practice should be stopped. She hears of a war crime, and this is all she can muster up? Some business about, can you please double check that the President has approved of this?
Why do you give these two Democrats — and most especially the non-existent Pelosi — a pass on their cowardly behavior here? Why are you leaping to their defense?
GOP Wurlitzer: “Who you gonna believe, us or your lying eyes?”
Think I’ll recreate myself for a while typing up some old index cards …
Another point here is what precisely the “authorities” were directed to. These were, presumably, the legal justifications that were being offered for the EITs. If the CIA said “We’ve checked out the legalities of X, Y, Z and they seem to be legitimate. We haven’t done the water boarding yet, it would be a very last recourse in a situation where a catastrophic attack was imminent. And we’re still examining the legality of doing it under those circumstances.” Pelosi might have thought “Lots of luck with THAT.” But said nothing.
Now this is just one possibility of how it was framed to her.
Furthermore, if she was told by an aide later that water boarding had already occurred…it would pose some very real issues. She would have received the information second hand (or perhaps third hand if Harmon told her aide who told Pelosi). Assuming she used her “Right to Speak without Prosecution” in the Well of the House, she would a) come under massive attacks for violating National Security laws; an attack coordinated by the WH at full Rovian and Cheney strength. There would have been selective release of documents- both bolstering the information received, as well as downplaying the dangers of water boarding. The OLC memos would never have been released with the number of water boardings exposed. They would have made it appear that it was far less than what SERE trainees receive.
And her informant would be hunted down by the Abu DOJ and charged with violating Secrecy laws. Jail would have likely have been a very real possibility. Certainly careers would have ended.
Well, if her own staffer informed her of it, it’s fair to ask why she didn’t pursue it.
And one more time, let’s cut to the chase. This is about people trying to force Obama to go after the Bushmasters, when he clearly does not want to do that. And using Pelosi to try to do it, has, to some extent, backfired on the effort to do it, and now she’s parsing like Donald Rumsfelt, in trying to explain why she discovered her distaste for water-boarding years after she learned about it.
And Frankly@67, thanks for posting that Turley recap of Pelosi’s statements.
I don’t care WHAT side of the aisle comes up with the truth. I don’t think it’s to Obama’s and our benefit to put this thing into the courts, where it will wallow and languish for years, distracting him from the huge problems he’s facing, and taking valuable political capital to try to obtain convictions. I think that if it gets into the courts, it will fail, and that failure will make it that much more difficult for him to take the painful steps necessary to keep his campaign promise and extract us from the misery of Iraq. And that is going to decide what chance he has for a second term; not whether or not he attempted and succeeded at having Dick Cheyney & Co. eating off a metal tray.
A large majority of americans (as demonstrated in the last election) knows that the Bush administration were a bunch of bloody-handed fuckups, but that same majority is not howling for them to be put in the dock, and clearly, neither is Barak Obama.
Now that trying to use Pelosi to further the process, is slowly evaporating under the effect of her Bush-like mincing of words, I subscribe to Norman Mailer’s old campaign slogan when he ran for mayor of New York, decades ago. He lost, but he gave us a political yardstick:
“No more bullshit.”
The idea that Pelosi’s aide telling her that there WAS waterboarding going on would have put him/her at risk for prosecution, is ludicrous.
And trying to use that as an excuse for Pelosi’s sitting on the information for years, instead of pursuing it, is worse than ludicrous. It’s flat-out dishonest.
Why is it ludicrous? Other aides have been threatened with prosecution for revealing NS information (lest we forget the major search for who revealed the NSA domestic wire tap program). They went after the Democratic staffers up until it was realized that the information was broached by Cheney in a Republican Caucus group, and it was Republicans that leaked it.
Pelosi certainly could have protected herself by speaking on the floor…but the aide? Hung out to dry. She couldn’t reveal the source of her knowledge without revealing that source. And any and all information was in the hands of the Bush-Cheney WH.
Pelosi and the Democrats would have been crucified for a) lying, b) endangering National Security during a WAR, and c) attempting to taint the names of those “heroic American interrogators” that obtained “intelligence that thwarted imminent attacks” and saved tens of thousands of lives. All in special technicolor redacted memos. The torture would have been presented, using documents, as less than what SERE trainees experience.
Remember too that water boarding came out in 2005…and likely in greater detail than Pelosi knew. And it’s still not clear when Harman thought the water boarding had taken place. Did she, and the aide, know that it occurred before Pelosi’s briefing? Or were they just aware it was “currently occurring”.
Let’s clarify; as I read it, Pelosi only received one briefing from the CIA. Is that correct? Anyone?
Brendan. Good point. I suspect that most of the congressional leadership in both houses knew that the Bushers were using torture, and just like Pelosi, they had squat to say about it. They should all be ashamed.
And defending them now, as part of the effort to force Obama to try to piss away political manna to get indictments of Bush’s top-enders, has no ethical basis at all.
In fact, it occurs to me that if the repubs had functioning brains (and not many of them do…) as desperate as they are to find some way to even START to put some dents in Obama’s popularity, one of the best things that could happen for them would be for Obama to get behind the push to drag them into court. It’s one thing to remove a sitting president, as was done with Nixon, but going after one who has just completed his 2nd term, or his top aides, is something that not a huge number of americans have the stomach for, no matter how repelled by some of their actions and policies, they may be.
And IF some of them were indicted, the process would certainly drag on and on, and sooner or later I think they would begin to take on a veneer of sympathy, as the difficulty of obtaining convictions became more and more apparent. This would happen just as push is coming to shove, in Iraq, and it would be going on in the run-up to the mid-terms. And Obama is going to have so much shit on his plate along about then, that he doesn’t need this useless dollop there, too.