Happy Hour Open Thread
* In an important moment that’s gone overlooked, GOP Rep Pete Hoekstra told Fox News yesterday that he’s seen the CIA briefing docs that supposedly prove Nancy Pelosi was told about the use of torture.
Hoekstra seemed to concede in the Fox interview that the docs “won’t be crystal clear as to exactly what went on in that briefing.” He said that still other CIA docs would have to be obtained to prove the point.
* Chris Cillizza and Eric Kleefeld weigh in on the latest evidence of Republican shrinkage.
* Sam Stein dives into into Congress’ bipartisan history of questioning the CIA. Conclusion: Pelosi’s criticism isn’t all that startling a break from tradition, after all.
* Politico’s Josh Gerstein has a good post showing some healthy skepticism about the CIA’s claims about Pelosi and torture. It’s a mark of how skewed the debate on this has been that Gerstein has to label these opinions “heresies.”
* Paul Krugman, on the challenges of being a liberal critic in the current era:
Policy tends to move things in a desirable direction, yet to fall short of what you’d hoped to see. And the question becomes how many compromises, how much watering down, one is willing to accept.
* If nothing else, the SCOTUS confirmation fight is a good money-raiser for the right.
* Here’s today’s installment of the Michele Bachmann chronicles.
* Kombiz Lavasany, the Web outreach dude for the DNC, emails to say he’s taking a new gig at New Partners, where he’ll help progressive candidates build online programs. Klavasany signs off with kudos to liberal bloggers, crediting them with defining John McCain early on in 2008 as a “different John McCain than the one who lost the primaries to Karl Rove’s smears in 2000.”
* Ezra Klein is off to a nice start with his new WaPo blog.
* And I’ll be on Rachel Maddow tonight a little after 9:00 P.M. Consider yourselves warned.
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Jan Schakowsky just came out for a Truth Commission. And she said there is another investigation underway on an unrelated issue about the CIA misleading Congress. And get this, a Republican initiated the investigation and Republicans are FURIOUS. I feel the winds changing.
The follow up question Wallace should have asked was “What other documents are there?” Because the CIA said they already made available all of the information about the briefings to members of Congress.
Greg, good luck on Rachel’s show tonight. Thanks for the heads-up, more good servicce and responsiveness to your faithful readers.
P.S., do you suppose she’ll ask you about the MoDo appropriates Josh situation? Josh is radio silence. So are you.
If the CIA failed to tell Pelosi that they had tortured when they had an obligation to, or if they told her they hadn’t used these techniques yet, why would we believe they wrote the truth in their journals? The other question would be, was Pelosi briefed by career agents, or political appointees, or career agents in the presence of political appointees?
For everyone’s enjoyment here is Jesse Ventura PWNing the hell out of Elisabeth Hasselbeck on the View on the torture issue.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSra-McRZEc
DanP
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Marcy Wheeler has some thoughts on who it was in the briefings based on Bob Graham’s account
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http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/05/18/bob-graham-it-was-oca-with-the-briefing-in-the-hart-senate-building/
For what it’s worth, I’m seriously annoyed at Anthony Kennedy. He’s dead to me.
At this point, the preponderance of public evidence — including Hoekstra’s description of the post-briefing CIA memo — tends to support the story of Pelosi and Graham.
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The only way to get closer to the truth is for competent counsel to interview all those present at the briefings, under oath. The question is, what is the right venue for that?
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Beyond the politics, Pelosi and Graham are establishing an important substantive point of fact: The CIA, contrary to its obligations under the National Security Act, failed to disclose that the first waterboarding had occurred (of Zubayday, 83 time). And if the briefers willfully mislead Congress, that can be a crime.
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As far as the politics goes, this does not get Pelosi off the hook — not with me, anyway. She, and Harman for that matter, failed to protest the torture with any vigor in 2003 when they did find out about it. But at least, on the narrow question of Pelosi’s word vs. the CIA’s, this is a significant point for Pelosi.
sgw: Ventura has been one of the best anti-torture advocates out there recently. And Hasselbeck has been spreading some WHOPPERS (did you know over 60% of all useful intelligence came from torture?). Fun to see the smackdown!
Hey Greg! Break a leg tonite with Maddow – hope you can help her ratings . . .
Ventura was solid and that was great to see. He will hit a homerun next time if he includes that torture provides unreliable intelligence.
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He would hit a grand slam if he points out that when it comes down to how someone like Cheney willfully dupes Congress and a nation into a war based on false pretenses, using torture methods that give unreliable intelligence is a necessity.
Great job on Maddow tonight! We old-school TPMers are so proud of our Greg….
Yes, good on Maddow, Greg. And nice handoff from JaO (with assist from SG) to get the new Hoekstra info out there.
Happy b’day (5/18) to Matt Yglesias.
Greg – can you write something about this apparent MSM consensus on using “harsh” as the terminology for waterboarding. Walter Pincus, in this – http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/18/AR2009051803126.html?hpid=topnews – article, uses “harsh techniques” or “harsh interrogations” countless times. Can’t they at least use the term “abusive?” I mean, this is propaganda. Bill-O used to refer to it as “coercive” interrogation, and folks saw THAT as being propaganda, but it was a lot more truthful then what NPR, the NY Times, WaPo, etc are doing now.
The Pelosi flap is totally meaningless in the larger context of the “war on terror.”
Members of Congress played along with a bogus justification for the Iraq war. There was enough public domain information available before the authorization to show anyone who could read that Bush was lying. Yet the war resolution passed and war funding was renewed again and again, even as slam dunk information came out that there was no imminent danger to the United States posed by Iraq.
Those who voted for a war based on lines and those who voted for ongoing funding after the lies were clearly exposed early on bear the responsibility for the consequences: 4,500 U.S. soldiers dead; ten times that many seriously injures; and over 1.0 million dead Iraqis from civil strive caused by the invasion.
That is the real issue – a collaborative effort by executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government to start and sustain an illegal war.
Why isn’t that addressed? Because the guilty parties are in charge of the investigation, by and large.
“# jzap | May 18th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Happy b’day (5/18) to Matt Yglesias.”
How old is Matt now – 13? He still looks like he’s about 11.
“Policy tends to move things in a desirable direction, yet to fall short of what you’d hoped to see. And the question becomes how many compromises, how much watering down, one is willing to accept.”
Gawd-ammit, Krugman, what’s your alternative? You sound like a Naderite half the time these days.
Great job on the Maddow show Greg.
Michael Steele just can’t keep his mouth shut:
“Steele to insist GOP comeback has begun
Party chairman says ‘era of apologizing for Republican mistakes’ is over.
WASHINGTON – Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele insists the GOP has embarked on a new chapter and says it now must offer genuine solutions for the ailing country.
“The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over. It is done,” Steele said in remarks prepared for delivery Tuesday to state party chairmen. “We have turned the page, we have turned the corner. No more looking in the rearview mirror. From this point forward, we will focus all of our energies on winning the future.”
Yet, even as Steele urged the party to focus on the future, he reached back to a Republican former president, saying: “Ronald Reagan always insisted that our party must move aggressively to seize the moment. He insisted that our party recognize the truth of the times and establish our first principles in both word and deed.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30818200/
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