Interestingly, the high-tech water cooler discussion centered on Pelosi: "she appears to think she is more powerful than she is"; "Speaker Pelosi should demand an investigation to clear her good name" (sarcasm intended). Those are real comments, on the email thread that I refrained from entering. It seemed that the Disgraced Former Speaker's credibility was not to be questioned.
But it appears to me that a few points need to be made.
In making a choice between Nancy Pelosi and the Disgraced Former Speaker regarding truth-telling, it's really an easy selection, and you don't even need to like Nancy Pelosi to arrive at that conclusion. That's a partisan reaction, true, but it's backed up by facts, things with which Newt is rarely concerned. We don't even need to look that far for clear examples. Just a couple of weeks ago Newt was running around claiming that President Obama's nominee for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, David Hamilton, ruled that you cannot mention Jesus in an opening prayer to a legislative session, but that it was ok to mention Allah. He's also been incorrectly claiming (and news sources witlessly presenting his claims as truth) that EFCA would put politically-appointed NLRB arbitrators into the middle of employer-union negotiations. If you're wondering, like most of what Newt says, both are lies. He projects a bit much when calling others liars - remember how he also ran around calling Joe Wilson a liar. How'd that work out for Scooter Libby? I was going to chronicle Newt's lies some more, but on quick investigation it turns out that the idea is so obvious that Media Matters did it a few days ago. Does he lie because he just doesn't have a clue about what he's talking about, or because he has no regard for the truth. In the Disgraced Former Speaker's words, is he "incompetent or dishonest" Does he lack such self-awareness? I'm not sure why we should even care.The man was embarrassed out of Congress for many reasons, not the least of which was for being a contemptible, scurrilous and dishonest human being (broadly defined), and completely aside from being a serial adulturer who walked away from a sick wife, which is pretty much standard flair for Republicans (and John Edwards) and can even earn you the GOP presidential nomination (though serving divorce papers while she's in the hospital for cancer has a bit of that extra-special flair). Newt would know better than anyone about "viciously using partisanship for the narrowest of purposes." How about blaming the horrifying murder of a pregnant woman and her children on "the welfare state" and "the moral decay of the world the left is defending" while he was Speaker? Vicious use of partisanship is and has always been this hypocrite's modus operandi. For the life of me, I don't understand why the media is rehabilitating this guy, consistently putting him on television and in the newspapers, promoting the idea of him as a reasonable voice on the right, their "idea man" who can bring the Republican Party out of the wilderness, and a potential future presidential contender. Presented with the Disgraced Former Speaker's unflappable dishonesty, the celebrity journalists are starry-eyed over the unflappability but unfazed by the chronic mendacity. But I guess when your alternatives are Rove and Cheney... Oh, sorry, the broadcast media fawn all over those guys, too.
Regarding the snarky comment that Pelosi should demand an investigation, she has been demanding an investigation. She supports a Truth Commission regarding everything relating to torture, and has from the start. She has not changed her position since these latest allegations began - in fact, if anything it has further cemented her call for one. This whole allegation is an attempt to shut that process down by implicating Pelosi in order to force her to back down from that, because those who were actually involved in ordering torture don't want one. If the stars are aligned properly, that attempt will backfire, just like everything else the Republicans try these days. Justice takes time, and not necessarily in the form we'd hoped, but it seems that it does come.
I wouldn't be surprised (although I would be disappointed) if Pelosi had been informed and was too much of a political coward to do anything about it. This was the post 9/11 era of Bush political scare tactics marked by wielding the security and national pride (wear your flag pin, dammit) hatchet over the heads of the opposition. But there's a tremendous difference between being informed of something and being a participant, and not just a question of degree. Apparently we're now supposed to believe that it's more of an offense to be told of that the Administration was engaged in improper behavior (and be told it's classified and that you're not allowed to discuss it with anyone) than to actually make the policy and carry out torture. Oh, and it wasn't torture according to those guys - or it was torture but it was okay anyway; I'm not sure what their current story is, since it changes so often - until Pelosi was "implicated".
However, I'm not prepared to concede the point. Everything that the forces of torture have said have been lies - real lies, not the kind that Newt charges people with - and lies of genuine and nefarious consequence. Beyond that, former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) - who, although a bit eccentric, is one of the most honest politicians that we have seen in a long, long time - says that Pelosi is right. That means a heck of a lot more to me than anything the Disgraced Former Speaker may have to say.
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