Bob Graham has verified her statements and has alleged himself that the CIA has lied about having briefings with him when it did not.

I think it's purely ridiculous to think that one member of Congress, who was bound to secrecy and unable by law to repeat what she was briefed on, was in a position to stop Bush from doing what he wanted to do. She couldn't talk to the press and clearly Bush wasn't listening to anyone but Cheney. What was she supposed to do to object, exactly?

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Reading is Fundamental.

Um... the issue is that for months and months she has been saying she knew nothing about the waterboarding, that she didn't know it was even on the table, that she had never heard it discussed, that she had never been briefed on it....

And now it has come to light that in fact she did attend a briefing where it was discussed.

And I guess she was so horrified at the thought that they believed it was legal that she just quit going to meetings.

I've gotta say.... when I'm part of a committee and something 'hot' is up, I don't miss a single meeting.

So if Nance was as bothered by waterboarding as she says she is, why did she not even show up to be briefed after she learned that they had been counseled that the tactics they wanted to employ were legal? Were I her, I would have considered their having gotten legal counsel about waterboarding as a precursor to employing it, and if it was something I found as disturbing as she claims it to be, you could not have kept me away from subsequent briefings.

It's about her lying about what she knew and when she knew it.

Makes you wonder if she knows what the meaning of 'is' is.

Yesterday at that press conference she was obviously having difficulty keeping her stories straight.

I don't doubt that the CIA presented the view that they most wanted to be true, but as 'the opposition', did she not have a responsibility to red flag things they said if she didn't trust their words? And yet, rather than red flags, she apparently decided to put up the red, white, and blue bunting and hit the whistle stops with her cohorts.

Um . . . no, that's not the issue, but you go right ahead as though it were.

I'll just say that knowing a technique is available is NOT the same as knowing the technique is being used. If you can understand that difference, you can understand what happened. If you choose to.

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Reading is Fundamental.

I absolutely understand the difference.

If a superintendent I didn't trust were to have a meeting with the PTA officers and say, "By the way, we asked our lawyer and he said it's okay if we want to handcuff naked boys to the toilets in the girls bathroom as punishment" you'd better believe I wouldn't walk out of that meeting saying to myself, "Gosh, he got legal counsel about that, but he's not actually DOING it, so I'm not going to give that statement a second thought."

She is apparently implying that she *forgot* that she was told anything about waterboarding all that time, and until she saw the paperwork about the briefing, it had just slipped her mind.

If she was as horrified by the practice as she has been claiming of late, I contend that she wouldn't have forgotten that the CIA was asserting the legal right to use it if they wanted to.

My initial post about this subject was about her dancing at the press conference yesterday as she tried to explain why she had initially said one thing that is now contradicted by the paper trail about what she knew, and when. You may not think that is the *bigger* issue... but it was the *issue* with which I began this discourse. That's what I meant in my post above.

It's amazing that the media would be so complicit in diverting attention from the issue of torture to Pelosi accusing the CIA of lying.

It seems that the only reason that torture was used was in order to produce faslse links between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Shockingly, this was on MSNBC: The Page by Mark Halperin – TIME.com - A one-stop shop for the latest political happenings at any hour of the day.

"They don't have briefings to tell you what they're NOT going to use." Pelosi is a liar and she's been caught in her lie. Now she's trying to find someone to blame.

Hopefully Obama will use this to get rid of her. Good riddance!!

Hey, if he'd do that, between refusing to release those photos, allowing the tribunals to continue, and saying he is against gay marriage, if he can get Pelosi off of my tv screen permanently I just might have to vote for the guy next time around.

(probably not, though! )

President Obama can't "get rid of her". She's an elected official. As I understand it, she would either resign, be voted out of office (during next election) or be investigated and removed by Congress by means of expulsion.

I'm not certain Speaker Pelosi is the one in the wrong here. Tammy, I heard Graham said his schedule conflicts with the four times CIA says they briefed him.

I guess time will tell.

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@@@
l/ l/ l/
Dont go through life,
GROW through life

Real eyes...realize...real lies.

I don't think that Pelosi is lying here. Graham does back her up.

Sure is quite a diversion from the real issues.

The GOP has nothing left but to divert attention.

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Reading is Fundamental.

Pelosi is a liar or either is VERY forgetful. Oh, yes, it's the Democrats -- haha, of course, they don't lie. NOT!! She got caught in her lie and now she's squirmming like a little worm trying to get out of her lie. Her press conference was a joke!! She was trying to read the written script put before her and was uh and ah and got so confused as to what lie she told which time, those eyes were wide open like a deer in headlights!!!

And of course Obama could get rid of her. Sure she's elected but he's the president and can quietly ask her to step down or he could make life really hard for her.

Democrats -- what a joke!!!

Great points, mom2.

That chick is two heartbeats away from the presidency. Lies she tells are relevant. Anyone who can't acknowledge that is showing their partisan slip.

Too darn funny! You're worried about lies by the Speaker of the House, but the lies Bush and Cheney told didn't bother the GOP one bit. Exposing undercover agents? No problem for the GOP! Joking about WMD? No problem! Lying about the end of the war? No problem!

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Reading is Fundamental.

The facts are that the CIA claims to have briefed all upper level house and senate members a total of 4 times. Thanks to the notes Graham kept on every meeting he ever had, the CIA had to back down and admits that only one briefing took place. Both Pelosi and Graham claim they never heard a word about waterboarding and the oh so smart mom to twins concludes that the CIA is telling the truth here.

Let's face it, whenever anyone from Bushco opened their mouth, out came a lie.

As much as I truly dislike and distrust this woman, I "almost" felt sorry for her at the press conference because she looked so totally incompetent (which I believe she is).

As several news commentators pointed out: if you're telling the truth, it shouldn't be that difficult to keep your stories straight.

I'm surprised Nancy hasn't used the depends on what "is" means excuse!! lol Yea, those Dems never lie!

Kathy, I'm afraid she may need to start *wearing* Depends. She seemed confused and dazed and I really question her mental state.

Well, thank you!. At least you got one thing correct in your silly statement!!

Bushco, huh? Don't you libs realize you're just making fools of yourself in that you can't make a statement without resorting to catty remarks about conservatives and President Bush. You can't even back up what you say because you can't seem to get out of your Bush/conservative bashing!

So childish!

I consider Bushco to be a criminal enterprise. I did not mention conservatives. Do you not think that we were lied into a war? Do you not think GOP donors like Halliburton and Blackwater were deliberately enriched at taxpayer expense?

Tell me, why did we invade Iraq?

As Ronald Reagan used to say .... "There you go again!" It's like a stuck record.... over and over and over.

Pelosi has been caught in a lie and she is trying to blame everyone else for it. Like another poster said, if she had told the truth to begin with, she wouldn't be having problems now trying to defend herself!!

Nancy Pelosi has not been caught in a lie. That is fact. She did tell the truth and has corroboration.

I know, I know, dear old Fox news has probably told you something else along with Limbaugh, Gingrich (who wants to be president still, oh so badly) Trying to claim that Pelosi lied is a tried and true GOP tactic; diversion from the actual crimes of Bushco.

Try sometime to argue your case but use facts. What facts support your statement, "Pelosi has been caught in a lie"? There aren't any. But, by all means, please go ahead a repeat the trite sayings you hear on Fox. You probably couldn't stop if you tried.

P.S. Reagan was a very lousy president.

LOL! Wow, those liberal news media sure have you blinded. I guess if they keep repeating it long enough, they think they can pound it into your little brains.

First Pelosi insists she never knew about waterboarding, then she changes her mind and says that she did but blames other people, i.e., CIA, Bush, etc. Call it whatever you want, but it's called lying.

She said she was never briefed on waterboarding (Graham says the exact same thing) She was briefed on certain techniques and advised that the CIA believed them to be legal. Pelosi et al disagreed with the legality. We all know of waterboarding. It's a torture technique that has been around since the Spanish Inquisition.

The CiIA has been caught in a lie. They claim to have briefed Graham and Pelosi on 4 different occasions. Because Graham kept a record of all his activities, he was able to prove that he was elsewhere on 3 of those occasions and backs up Pelosi. The CIA has backed down.

How, in light of all the facts outlined above, does it make Pelosi a liar? We know that Tenet lied on behalf of Bushco in the lead up to the war.

Furthermore, my side has evaluated facts. Your side has embraced claims as fact and in order to "prove" your argument , you feel compelled to insult those who have actually evaluated the facts as having "little brains."

Again, you are inaccurate. College educated Americans voted for Obama overwhelmingly. College educated Americans identify overwhelmingly as Democrats.

I refer you to the current icons of the GOP; Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber and Miss California. All are knuckle dragging anti intellectuals. I have never seen such ignorant people. Then again, neither Bush struck me as intelligent.

Is Graham her corroboration? Isn't he the one who claimed he wasn't even briefed when the CIA claimed to have briefed him? How can he corroborate what Nancy Pelosi was or wasn't told if he himself wasn't even there???

As a side note, Nancy Pelosi said she heard of the waterboarding from an aide, in 2003. Not sure what that ads to the mix, but, it's all a big mess.

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

Yes. And he has proof that the CIA lied. So there's at least one documented instance of the CIA lying about this exact subject.

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Reading is Fundamental.

Let's appoint a special investigator and get to the bottom of this. We are actually obligated to do just this when war crimes have even been alleged to have been committed.

Ahhh.... the last three paragraphs -- spoken like a true Democrat. And you've never seen such ignorant people, you say? Hmmm... have you looked at the majority leaders lately? LOL! They are a joke and Pelosi is the poster child (along with Barney Frank).

You prove my point, dearie. You give me baseless accusations. Neither Pelosi nor Frank are stupid people. The three that I named are fountains of ignorance and verbose to boot.

Frankly, there isn't much left of the GOP other than the anti intellectuals. I just don't see that as a winning strategy.

You were wrong in every single thing that you said. You'll sleep better if you admit it.

You go girl!

The party of no ideas, no hope and no chance. When Cantor and Limbaugh are the spokespeople, the GOP is in sad, sad shape.

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Reading is Fundamental.

And Biden is so laconic and such a fount of knowledge

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

And here we are, changing the subject again.

Nope. Just making a comment.....

I'm neither democrat or republican. I just follow along and comment on things that pique my interest. Ocassionally, I actually glean some new and/or interesting information. Typically, I just see the same people beating the same dead horse and regurgitating the same arguments and positions..

Frankly, I think Pelosi has fudged the truth a bit---and the CIA has fudged the truth a bit. They were, at the time, doing what they believed they had to for the good of the country.

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

The OP brought up a rather salient fact. This mom2rwins just weighed in with name calling to argue her case. She had no facts to counter with.

There isn't a person on this planet who hasn't lied at one time or another. I think that what Truble brought up proves that Pelosi told the truth in this instance though.

This whole attempt to paint Pelosi a liar is pure diversion from the whole issue of torture.

I disagree.

I never brought it up to *divert* anything.

If you look down the list of threads, you'll see that I am the one who instigated this discussion (Nancy, Nancy, Nancy).

I had just turned off the tv from watching her press conference and found her inability to string two words together coherently to be extremely telling. She was dancing faster than I have ever seen her dance, losing her train of thought, and looking extremely flustered.

My bringing that up had nothing whatsoever to do with diverting anything. That's a flat out lie.

I can talk torture all you want. I believe that we were living in a time when we saw things more clearly and we had not settled into a place of complacency regarding the evil, horrible, murderous things terrorists are capable of doing. I believe that they did tell her about waterboarding and DID tell her they had used or were were going to use it.

You don't tell someone you've gotten legal opinions that things were acceptable if you had no plans to employ this things. That is goofy. Why waste valuable meeting time discussing the things you weren't going to do?

I don't really care for the word 'torture' because it has different connotations and different definitions. There are rotten kids who *torture* baby toads with matches, and there are psycho adults like Jeffry Dahmer who torture people for their own sick pleasure. And then there are individuals who, in the name of saving the lives of innocent people, sometimes find themselves in situations where the only thing they have left to do to try to get information out of a hardened criminal who is sitting on terrible secrets is to be so mean to him, to make him so flippin' scared for his life, that he just might talk.

Anyone who can't see the difference in the motivation behind those scenarios is an idiot.

We can talk about torture all day, but it won't change anyone's minds about whether they believe techniques like waterboarding are justified or not. What was *new* last week was the fact that a bumbleheaded liberal icon got caught like a deer in the headlights and after months on the offensive, the second somebody said, "Whoa, Nance. Looks like you've got some splainin' to do..." she freaked out in front of the cameras.

Those of us who think techniques like waterboarding have their place were frankly sick of her going on the news day in and day out looking flabbergasted that it had ever occurred, shocked that the US might have even considered it, angry at the people who approved it, and ignorant of the fact that it was ever on the table.

And the minute those tables were turned and she got caught, the priceless look on her face just took my happy little breath away. Finally, she has to shut up because she just doesn't know what to say when she's challenged.

Diversion from the topic of torture? Lie. That's a great. Big. Lie.

*snort*
I worked with a deputy who, when he had to transport a prisoner for more than 15 min. would play "Hakuna Matata" (sp) from the Lion King in a continual loop! That would be torture to some!

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

Ya know.... I'm not kidding when I say that there are probably some here on this board who would support the ACLU going after that deputy and having him suspended without pay while an investigation was conducted to see if he had inflicted actual harm on the prisoner.

Sad but a real possiblity!

I don't like her. But, then again, there are other speakers I haven't liked either.

I wish the Truth Commission thing would go away. This is forcing it, unfortunately, IMHO. I worry about the outcome, and how it will affect our world standing. Because, in the end, I do believe "we" were lied to. If we investigate the CIA briefings, we will investigate everything. Then, what I believe to be this sad truth, will be known to all.

It is unfortunate that I, as an American Citizen, don't want what I believe to be the truth to be known to the world. It breaks my heart. Because, I truly believe the people of my land are better than greedy torturers. But, it is what it is.

She may be falling on a sword to get the Truth Commission concept done, or she may be telling the truth. Or, both I suppose. Some hope both, some hope neither. Most believe it will end up being a little of each. I don't care that the world knows a US President lied about a blow job. I do care that we discover a President of the United States lied to the people of the world to invade another country to increase my country's ecomony and world power.

There will be no good ending to this.

That's your interpretation of what you saw. Others saw something very different.

And I believe they did not. How are we going to prove who's right? We already have evidence that the CIA has lied about these very briefings.

I believe you're mixing reports that Bush commissioned to cover his butt with the briefings the CIA gave Pelosi and others.

And the diversion is the GOP pretending to not understand what Pelosi said happened and being more worried about her supposed lies than they are about the way BushCo blatantly broke laws, lied to this country and lied to Congress.

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Reading is Fundamental.

I don't think that you were trying to divert. I think that you were just repeating what those who try to divert were saying.

When Valerie Plame was outed, one pundit said that she wasn't undercover. All the talking heads repeated that. But, she was undercover. She was head of a pretty sophisticated operation which took years to build and lots of tax dollars. Those in charge of the CIA said she was undercover. Her immediate boss said she was undercover.

All of that was a stupid diversion from the fact that what her husband wrote was true.

The fact is though that Graham backs up Pelosi.

Did the CIA out her? There have been so many stories about this. I know, OP, off topic, but, someone brought up Valerie Plame.

Found this article. What type of source is this?? My head is spinning with all this BS going on.

Andrew C. McCarthy on Valerie Plame on National Review Online

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

The CIA did not out her. They were furious that she was outed. All signs point to Cheney. One of the first things they did was tell Richard Armitage because he was known to be a gossip. It took him weeks to repeat it.

According to Matthew Brady, Time magazine, he first heard it from Cheney and didn't regard it as very newsworthy.

After Novak outed her in his column, the Wilsons got a phone call from Bush 41 expressing extreme regret. That's how the Wilsons found out about it.

A very eye-opening article on DemocracyNow
The last part of the "transcript" is especially interesting.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/1..._military_thug

"I think what’s going to be important is that we know that some of the members of Congress, Democrat and Republican, who were briefed actually pushed for stronger tactics to be used during these briefings. I think one of the reasons why the Democrats are—the Democratic leadership is not pushing for a special independent prosecutor in this case is because if you actually examine the record, you will find that the Democrats funded these programs, supported these programs, and refused to speak up when it actually mattered. That’s the pattern we saw through the eight years of the Bush administration. Now that the Democrats are in power, you see Obama—the right wing tries to say flip-flopping—you see Obama upholding the consistent one-party system in this country when it comes to foreign policy." -- Jeremy Scahill

More about Jeremy Scahill
Jeremy Scahill - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia