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Goodness sake, Netizens…
Oh, don’t get me started on Nancy Pelosi.
Today David Horsey takes on Nancy Pelosi, and this time it is her on the table to be tortured into telling the truth, if you believe certain conservative Republicans. On the other hand, Democrats are jumping into the fray stating unquestionably that Pelosi was telling the truth when she said the CIA never informed her about torturing terrorist suspects.
Who can we believe?
Pelosi is a skilled and gifted politician, of that you can be sure. In fact, anyone who rises to her level in the current political warpath is automatically suspect, in my opinion. In fact, anyone from the Republican side of the aisle is just about, if not more suspect. Historians will doubtlessly have a few years to write their versions of what happened in America during the Bush Administration and since.
Somehow I have the same eerie feeling that someday someone will write a different view of history where Nancy Pelosi is concerned with regard to the Barack Obama legacy.
Personally I think she probably was told what the CIA was doing with torturing our enemies, but calmly and proficiently “forgot” what she heard. Tighten the screws a little tighter guys and maybe she’ll spill the beans yet. That is the same philosophy ostensibly used by the CIA.
Dave
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Jeffrey_Grey on May 21 at 4:44 a.m.
Dave,
I agree that Pelosi’s channeling of Sgt. Schultz (“I know nothing! Nuuuh-thing!”) is rather unconvincing to say the least.
My concern of the moment is that this is going to turn into a replay of the Clinton/Lewinski circus when it gets side-tracked (and ultimately de-railed) by partisan / political advantage-seeking. ‘Did not! Did so! You’re nasty! You’re more nasty! You started it!’ Bickering mental two-year-olds.
I’m also still hung up on the double-standard that says lying in order to keep a dirty little secret is bad, but having a dirty little secret in the first place is perfectly okay. (‘We never torture! … Okay, maybe a little bit, but it wasn’t wrong! … Okay, so if it was wrong … umm … suppose there’s this ticking time bomb and…’)
Oh, and speaking of ticking time-bombs: This just in! Ticking time-bomb plot actually defused and not one person tortured to accomplish the win! (So I guess that makes the real-world hypothetical: ‘Okay, suppose there’s this ticking time-bomb and it was possible to save the people in danger through good police work and not beating the crap out of someone who might know something?’)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/20/national/main5029390.shtml
JeanieSpokane on May 21 at 8:53 a.m.
Jeffrey, I love how you write. My, my, my - it’s just a little bubbling pot of trouble, isn’t it?
I personally can’t stand Pelosi. I think she’s divisive.
Anyway - you got my morning going for something to stew about. :)
spokelooneh on May 21 at 10:55 a.m.
The NY Temple bombing plot was no “ticking time bomb” scenario.
Do you read the articles you post?
“Officials say at the men were not equipped to carry out any attack and never came close to being “operational.”
The explosives they obtained through the informant were dummies and not capable of causing harm, however the men were able to purchase at least one nine millimeter semi-automatic pistol for use in an attack. ”
It seems some don’t have a fundamental understanding of what a “ticking time bomb” scenario is.
Jeffrey_Grey on May 21 at 12:34 p.m.
Spokelooneh,
I actually read several versions of that story before I posted my comments this morning. And I do in fact know what a ‘ticking time-bomb scenario is.
The point that I was attempting to make (perhaps not all that elegantly) is that this represents a ticking time-bomb that never even got a chance to tick because good police work prevented it from ever becoming one.
Good police work.
Not torture. Not abandoning fundamental principles. Not ‘ends justify the means’ rationalizing.
Lurid hypothetical have to have at least some basis in reality.
To date, I’m not aware of any ticking time-bombs that have defused through recourse to torture. On the other hand, I submit that this is an example of one that was so successfully defused by sticking to the rules and to principles rather than surrendering to expediency that it never even got to the point where it posed a credible danger.
So I submit that my hypothetical is - to the extent of real-world example to date at least - more plausible. “What if there was this ticking time bomb and we could save the people in danger by sticking to our principles?”
Jeffrey_Grey on May 21 at 12:40 p.m.
Jeanie,
Thank you. Most kind. :)
I’m to the point these days where I simply have lost all faith in elected office. I think our system has somehow gotten so far off the tracks that it’s now all just a case of power corrupting. I further believe that until we voters take our own destinies into our own hands and stay *intimately engaged* with our own governance and develop something longer than a 90-second-for-a-commercial-break memory span, it’s not going to get better.
And I’m usually quite the optimist.
ChefGus/ John Olsen on May 22 at 6:44 a.m.
Jeannie, i would gently point out to you that were Ms Pelosi.. Mr Pelosi there likely would not be such a virulent attack.
In this world still… after years of “womens liberation” the woman who stands up and speaks her piece and her peace is a fearsome thing within the power structure… and all too often women support the power structure and it’s perks of the blue eyed white guys…
We ALL knew/know about the torture that was being carried out in our name and to the dishonor of our constitution and laws of the military. There was very little uproar here in Spokane when it came to light that the “methods” had some genesis right here.
So “scapegoat” comes to mind.. and Ms Pelosi was not even in a position of power way back when as she is now.
I concur with J Grey that the reality of the torture is the issue, not so much how many of us knew about it…. or care a bout it…. Mr Cheney’s speech was criminal admission… particularly if you contrast it with his prior words over time that are shown on tape for contrast by Dr Maddow last evening… enough evidence right there to send him to jail/gallows gus