Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi has been under attack by Republicans and the right-wing media for the possibility that she knew that the Bush administration was torturing people. The mainstream media have abetted the right-wing tactic by making what Pelosi knew into multiple Headlines. What Ms. Pelosi knew is not the main issue. She could hardly even have been an accessory to the alleged crimes of torture as no one attributes to her the power either to approve or stop the torture. Yet somehow, through the perversity of the right-wing media and those who sell news rather than report news, Nancy Pelosi has become the main story.
Had Ms. Pelosi publicly objected to the content of the briefing she received, she had been warned that she would be sanctioned for breach of national security. She can not know how that would have played out. Would she have been arrested and isolated, would the right-wing news machine make her an enemy of the state in the minds of those who continued to support Bush and Cheney? Would she ever regain her credibility to oppose the policies she had been made aware of?
I don’t know if Ms. Pelosi is absolutely correct in her characterizations of the events of 6, 7, and 8 years ago. She was not allowed to document or share the information she received. I do know that she is not the villian in this story. Responsibility for the abuses of the Bush Administration falls precisely on those who made the policies, carried out the policies, sought to justify torture and sought justification for torture. These people to the extent of their guilt, when proven, are the villains. A leader in the minority party in the house at the time these policies were made and carried out was effectively silenced in the guise of keeping congress informed.
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