May 31, 2009

Pelosi Power Grab

Congressional Democrats last week quashed a Republican effort to investigate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s assertion that the Central Intelligence Agency misled her in 2002 as to whether “water-boarding” had been used against terrorists in American custody.

Rep.  Rob Bishop (R-Utah) had sponsored the resolution.  However, Republicans Ron Paul of Texas, and Walter Jones of North Carolina joined the Democrats in killing it.

Pelosi was not present when the vote was called – at the time giving a commencement speech at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Her aide, Nadeam Elshami, asserts:

“The vote was partisan politics, and an attempt by Republicans to distract from the real issue of creating jobs and making progress on health care, energy and education.”

WATER-BOARDING

Recently, Pelosi asserted she had not been told that water-boarding had been used against terrorist prisoners.  However, President Barack Obama and various liberal organizations had so characterized it many times.

House Democrat Leader Steny Hoyers called a press conference to call for an investigation of the nation’s interrogation policy.  What did the CIA know, and when did they know it?

Hoyers says the Republican proposal was meant to distract from the question of whether the Bush administration tortured war prisoners.  Hoyers, called the resolution: “Another example of Republicans engaging in politics of personal destruction.”

PHONY MORALIZING

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney insists that Pelosi and other lawmakers had been briefed about the interrogation techniques “on numerous occasions.”

“In my long experience in Washington, few matters have inspired so much contrived indignation and phony moralizing as the interrogation methods applied to a few captured terrorists.”

Pelosi asked the CIA to declassify information supporting her claims.  Accordingly, the agency has sent lawmakers its notes and memos on 40 congressional briefings on the interrogation techniques.

CIA director Leon Panetta acknowledged in a May 6, letter to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Tx) that the CIA’s list May not be completely accurate.

“In the end, you and the committee will have to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened,” wrote Panetta.

ABSOLUTE  POWER

Americans -- and foreign nations around the world -- are fascinated by interplay of power blocs in Congress.

We are reminded of a famous quotation in l887 by John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, the first Baron Acton of England:

“Power Corrupts.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist