Looks like the only one here frothing is you Dave. Get a grip.

It seems that Jazz has gone on to a new post without time to reply to the points and questions you have raised… Not worth his time I guess.

IMO his non-reply speaks volumes.

Now, you refer to “paper thin excuses for those slanders (which a couple of our more liberal readers have picked up on and tried to use in this thread).”

Is it slander to say the CIA is wrong about their briefings? Let's see. The CIA said they briefed Congress “repeatedly.” Bob Graham said oh yeah? What dates? They specifically said they had briefed Graham 4 times. Oops. Bob Graham is a notorious note taker and his notes are in the U of FL library. Three of the four briefings never took place. The CIA lied. Or at the least, the CIA was wrong. Now THEY'RE backtracking; all the way back. They say “Graham is correct.” Should they “pack their bags” and leave in shame? Maybe they were lying, maybe they were just shabby record keepers. But there is no doubt they were WRONG.

And what about that Panetta disclaimer? He pushes back on Pelosi, saying the CIA stands by their version. *Then* he repeats the very lawyerly disclaimer that they're not sure of their version. Remember? “This information, however, is drawn from the past files of the CIA and represents [memorandums for the record] completed at the time and notes that summarized the best recollections of those individuals. In the end, you and the Committee will have to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened.” The “notes” her refers to, we now know, were compiled years later, and may well be mistaken, as they surely were in Graham's case.

First of all, that is not quite what the source (Think Progress) said. Here is the exact quote again:

For weeks, conservatives have been launching hypocritical and disingenuous attacks on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) regarding her level of knowledge of the Bush administration’s torture program.

“Launching hypocritical and disingenuous attacks,” and “characterizing any question towards the Speaker's statements and actions AS attacks” do not mean the same thing.

And the first phrasing is accurate.

Sure, I'm positive that many Republicans would welcome some distraction, but it doesn't mean that the Speakers actions are above question.

I don't believe anyone has said that the Speaker's actions are above question. But the attention that is being paid to how much Pelosi knew and when she knew it and what she should have done, compared with the attention being paid to the actual war crimes that people are arguing over how much she knew, is truly bizarre. At least it is if you assume that most people think war crimes should be prosecuted.

I'm glad you're not going so far as to say that Pelosi broke the law, because, with the information we have now, there is really no basis for anyone to think that. And I can't understand why Pelosi and her colleagues falling down on their oversight duties, as reprehensible as that might be (assuming they had a meaningful choice, which is a large assumption), overshadows and is so much more horrifying and contemptible than actually coming up with that list of torture techniques and slicing and dicing the law to try and make it fit what they wanted to do.

She should pack her bags and leave. Her behavior in this affair has been disgraceful, all for the sake of winning a couple inches of turf in the political battleground.

I'm sorry, Jazz, but that is extraordinarily bizarre. Truly. I have never been a Nancy Pelosi fan, but how anyone can characterize her behavior as “disgraceful” and say she should “pack her bags and leave” is beyond me when many of the same people who actually authorized and justified torture are still employed by the C.I.A.; when Jay Bybee is a federal judge one level below the Supreme Court; when John Yoo is a professor of constitutional law at one of the most prestigious public universities in the country, AND has been given a monthly column at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

There's something really wrong with that, and I think you should think about it.

Kathy, it's dismissive and partisan attitudes like yours that gives me hope that fiscal conservatism and individual responsibility can eventually recover. Did you even listen to Obama today? Is that whole “common ground” thing just BS as far as the left is concerned?

Of course you can, so let's have at it.

Then we probably don't disagree as much as the rest of our readers here in the comments seem to believe. I wasn't being sarcastic when I said investigations in to torture, extraordinary actions, et. al. can and should go forward. My only point was that the first source you quoted characterized any questions towards the Speakers statements and actions as being “hypocritical and disingenuous attacks.”

She should pack her bags and leave. Her behavior in this affair has been disgraceful, all for the sake of winning a couple inches of turf in the political battleground.

Steve, that's because the voices on the right — come to that, the right in general — is NOT reality-based. Their thinking and their arguments are not based on what is factual, true, or possible given objective reality.

In the instance of the CIA's torture program, however, Congress as a whole was not briefed. Only key members of the House and Senate intelligence committees were briefed. That's just a handful of people. Actually, maybe less than a handful.

No one needs to disclose anything. It’s all done behind closed door.

jwest, are you out of your mind? Congress cuts off funding for a program and no one knows that it happened, or which program was defunded, or why?

Do something that congress doesn’t like and the money stops. This is how our government works.

Um, but jwest, Congress has to know that the something is happening before they can dislike it. Congress was not briefed about CIA interrogations policy. Maybe five or six members of Congress were briefed about CIA interrogations policy. Those five or six people were bound by law not to reveal or discuss what was said in those briefings, to anyone who was not in the briefings. “Anyone who was not in the briefings” includes all those other members of Congress who were not briefed.

How do you imagine Nancy Pelosi and Jane Harman would have cut off funding for the CIA's interrogation program by themselves, without telling anyone else in Congress why they wanted to do so?

I honestly and truly do not understand what is the confusion about this point. What is it you don't understand?

Nancy Pelosi has called for a Truth Commission. Other Democrats have also called for investigations. Liberals and Democrats both inside and outside Congress have said they are willing to go wherever the facts lead. I have seen many liberal or left-leaning bloggers state outright that they are perfectly fine with holding Pelosi and other congressional Democrats responsible if an investigation shows they were complicit in torture. I have not seen any Republicans, in Congress or in the blogosphere, say they want everyone who planned, justified, and ran the torture program to be held responsible.

I think it's Republicans who are trying to avoid responsibility, not Democrats.

So? What does that have to do with the criminality of torture?

I don't know what you mean by “full briefing,” but regardless of what she was told or not told in the briefing, it doesn't affect the criminality of the acts themselves.

We need to see the CIA's notes of those meetings — but if they contradict what Pelosi has said, that still doesn't prove anything, because Pelosi was not permitted to take notes during the meeting. None of the members of Congress who were briefed were allowed to take notes. The briefers did not want them to have records of what was said, to be able to compare their notes or talk to anyone else about them. So if only one side is allowed to take notes, and there's a contradiction or an inconsistency, by what measure of fairness do we give the benefit of the doubt to the side that forbade the other side to take notes?

Of course you can, so let's have at it.

” what good is congress?”

I often wonder about that. The Founders designed a beautiful system, but we are often poorly represented by those in Congress, whose greed and lust for power is more important to them than serving the Constitution or the people they are supposed to represent.

I love this country, a country that stands against sadism and depravity and torture and has fought valiantly for the international laws requiring decency in treatment of prisoners.

You apparently do not stand against those things and now defend the same twisted tactics for which we have prosecuted others.

Sorry to hear about your daughter. I hope Obama succeeds in assuring that she is never ordered to do those things, and that those who ordered them in the past are punished as a warning to others that even in the treatment of our enemies, we have morals, ethics and the rule of law. America is made up mostly of decent people. Those things are not decent.

My daughter joined the Navy less than a month ago. She did not join to learn “outright sadism and depravity”, nor to become “sadistic sex offenders” – she joined to serve her county honorably, a country she loves, and you obviously hate.

What is sad and pathetic is America-haters such as yourself spilling your vileness towards people, our Armed Services members, who have more honor, patriotism, and true valor than sick little pricks like yourself ever did have, or ever will.

None of the Pelosi distractions mean anything to me. Neither she nor any other legislator had any role in DECIDING or ORDERING that misconduct. And jwest, cutting off funding for the CIA is NOT a viable way for the opposition party to stop these practices, even if they could have done so, which they could not, especially without disclosing the reasons why. It's also completely lame to suggest Pelosi or others should have broken national security laws by disclosing the content of top secret briefings. And CS, we have no knowledge whether or not Pelosi “refused” to sign Harman's letter.

So what I'm reading here from the right is they excuse the depravity that their team inserted into military service but want Dem legislators investigated for not breaking federal law to try to stop it.

As for the CIA lying, it's already proven. They claimed to have “repeatedly” briefed Pelosi and others. Not true. Provably not true. Yes, let's investigate. Let's prosecute. Let a court decide if there's sufficient evidence to indict and if so, to convict. That's how American law works.

Yes. Yes I do.

This method work especially well when the subject is opposed by the party not in power in the executive branch. If not for the power to end/stall/reduce funding, what good is congress?

jwest,
Do you honestly believe this? OMFG.
You're right that this is how it's SUPPOSED to work, but there's a nasty thing called politics that interferes.
Unfortunately. BTW this reflects poorly on both Rs and Ds, not one or the other.

I see what your trying to say JWest, I told the same thing in 10th Grade Civics/Government class and I remember thinking that it was a great way to do things.

Do you still believe this is how it actually works?.. What really happens? If you do would/could you please give me a recent (last 10 – 15 years) example? I'd like to get some of my youthful naivety back.