As John notes, whether Nancy Pelosi knew or didn’t know about the Bush administration’s authorization and execution of torture doesn’t matter. Either Pelosi didn’t know or she abdicated her responsibility as a political leader and American by not speaking up and opposing it. Either way, it doesn’t matter.
What matters is that the government tortured people.
(The argument over whether the evidence was good or not is mostly a red herring, as well)
Also, Harry Reid seems to have taken a break from continually getting rolled by the Senate Republicans to come out against an investigation into an activity that stained the soul of America. A lot of brilliance there, as usual.
Our international reputation has been destroyed.
Considering what the rest of the world thinks, pardon me for not wanting to go out of our way to win their good graces.
When did not torturing people become going out of your way?
“whether Nancy Pelosi knew or didn’t know about the Bush administration’s authorization and execution of torture doesn’t matter. Either Pelosi didn’t know or she abdicated her responsibility as a political leader and American by not speaking up and opposing it.”
This has been my complaint for years about Dems like Clinton and Kerry who voted for the Iraq War and then hemmed and hawed about how they didn’t know there weren’t any WMD’s. I was 20 years old and I knew the rationale for war was full of holes; either Kerry and Clinton are liars or they spent less time fact-checking the President than a 20-year-old college kid did. Neither paints a very flattering picture.
I really do hate Reid and Pelosi.
I guess when all you have is an approach to policy based strictly on political considerations, everything your opponent does will be seen as a cynical political ploy, rather than, say, an effort to uphold the rule of law and see that alleged war crimes are investigated and if credible, prosecuted. So the perception might be that if some Democratic lawmakers were informed and informally “signed off on it”, then we’d BTFU and stop asking for a special prosecutor. Well, I can understand the mistake, but frankly anybody who is complicit in this should pay a price for it. I don’t care what letter they have after their name. Let the chips fall where they may.