Research 2000 polling confirms that Nancy Pelosi had a tough week. Carl Hulse of the New York Times is right that the torture debate has put a dent in Pelosi’s hide. She saw a net seven percent drop in approval numbers which came about equally from declining numbers from Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. For Democrats, the problem is that Pelosi knew about waterboarding in 2003 and did nothing explicit about it. She says she concurred with a protest letter sent by Jane Harman at the time, but she didn’t co-sign it. Fair enough. Pelosi isn’t covered in glory. But here are two things that should make Republicans think twice about whatever benefit they think they are getting out of bloodying Pelosi up a bit. The first is an observation made by Hulse:
Lawmakers and senior government officials say the public furor could also give momentum to the push for an inquiry into the Bush administration’s interrogation policies as well as into what senior members of Congress knew about the treatment of detainees…
…Ms. Pelosi is not the only one with political exposure. Should any investigation determine that the C.I.A. misled members of Congress, the result could be severely damaging to the agency and to the Republican leaders who have relentlessly pressed the issue against Ms. Pelosi.
The second is something that was not immediately obvious in CIA Director Leon Panetta’s memo to CIA employees that requested that they turn down the temperature on the debate and focus on their mission.
Mr. Panetta, a former Democratic congressman from California and a longtime associate of Ms. Pelosi, issued a statement that said the agency’s “contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that C.I.A. officers briefed truthfully,” a rebuttal of Ms. Pelosi’s claim on Thursday that intelligence officials had lied to her…
…Mr. Panetta said it would ultimately be “up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened.”
It might be subtle, but DCI Panetta explicitly invited Congress to investigate this matter and reach their own conclusions. In fact, he said it was their responsibility to do so.
So…keep poking Pelosi. Keep reassigning blame. If the aim is to stop a Church Committee-style humiliation, I think this might be entering into EPIC FAIL territory. The worse Pelosi looks, the more incentive she has to make her adversaries pay. And that, after all, is what the Frog demands.
