Pelosi Backpedals Furiously, Claims CIA Misled Her

Nancy Pelosi, who attended at least one of 13 CIA briefings on waterboarding between February 2003 and March 2009, is now claiming that she knew nothing about waterboarding being used and that the CIA lied, saying they were not using the torture technique. Pelosi, who learned politics at an early age under the tutelage of her father, one-time Maryland congressman and Baltimore City mayor Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., is mixing it up with the CIA in a back and forth battle about who said what, and when. If Pelosi seems particularly adept at maneuvering in such instances, one need only look at her upbringing in Baltimore, where politics are practiced in back rooms, city bosses and shady deals run rampant and "scandal" is just another word.

Said Pelosi in a recent statement, complete with the long "O’s" and nasally inflection of her east coast home town, "We were told that waterboarding was not being used. That’s the only mention, that they were not using it. And we now know that earlier they were." Pelosi went on to suggest that the CIA should release all briefing material. Responding, CIA Spokesman George Little noted, "It is not the policy of this agency to mislead the United States Congress."

Upon further research, it was found that Pelosi attended a CIA briefing on September 2, 2002, while serving as the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. A notation in the briefing documents indicates that the briefing was focused on "enhanced interrogation techniques in Abu Zubaydah, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed." Some in Congress question that accuracy of those notes, however, and Pelosi has called for a "truth commission" on the matter. This comes as a bit of a surprise, as President Obama has publicly denounced the practice of torture, but has assiduously avoided even a possibility of looking into past transgressions for fear that it will take attention away from his domestic policies.