A thought on the Pelosi-CIA controversy, tying back to last week’s piece on “The Alinsky Administration,” particularly this paragraph:
Alinsky’s influence goes well beyond Obama, obviously. There are many wonderful Democrats in this world, but evidence suggests that rising in that party’s political hierarchy requires some adoption of a variation of the Alinsky philosophy: Power comes first. Few Democrats are expressing outrage over Nancy Pelosi’s ever-shifting explanation of what she knew about waterboarding. Those who screamed bloody murder about Jack Abramoff’s crimes avert their eyes from John Murtha. The anti-war movement that opposed the surge in Iraq remains silent about sending additional troops to Afghanistan. Obama will never get as much grief for his gay-marriage views as Miss California.
It’s now been four days since Pelosi made the bombshell accusations that not only had the CIA lied to her about whether they were performing waterboarding as an interrogation technique, but “they mislead us all the time.”
Presume, for the sake of argument, that Pelosi is telling the truth, and that the CIA briefed her and Porter Goss on techniques they weren’t using, and held the briefing just to tell them that they weren’t using this method. Presume, indeed, that despite the dire consequences, and the fact that Goss remembers the meeting completely differently, the CIA chose to lie to Pelosi.
That still doesn’t explain the accusation that the Agency lies to Congress “all the time”; her answer suggests that the organization is continuing to give false information to lawmakers. And yet only when cornered in a disastrous press conference did Pelosi choose to inform the public of this vast, disturbing, explosive crisis.
So let’s presume what we all have concluded – the CIA doesn’t “mislead” Congress “all the time,” and Pelosi just blurted out the first defense that popped into her head.
In the four days since she said these words, have we seen any congressional Democrat come out and say, “She shouldn’t have said that”? Has anyone on that side of the aisle felt the need to say, “Look, I don’t know what was said in Pelosi’s briefing, but we shouldn’t smear the entire CIA as a bunch of liars”?
Not a one.
Retaining and expanding power requires this bald-faced lie to be airbrushed from history, and thus every Democrat on Capitol Hill will avert their eyes and pretend it didn’t happen. They will insist the Emperor’s clothes look fine; the appetite for power demands it.