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By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  May 15th, 2009 at 08:50 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

It’s like a demented tennis match:

CIA director says Pelosi received the truth

CIA Director Leon Panetta challenged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s accusations that the agency lied to her, writing a memo to his agents saying she received nothing but the truth.

[snip]

Panetta, President Obama’s pick to run the clandestine agency and President Clinton’s former chief of staff, wrote in a memo to CIA employees Friday that “CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing ‘the enhanced techniques that had been employed,’” according to CIA records.

“We are an agency of high integrity, professionalism and dedication,” Panetta said in the memo. “Our task is to tell it like it is — even if that’s not what people always want to hear. Keep it up. Our national security depends on it.”

(Via Riehl World View, via AoSHQ)

…and that last statement translates to, as near as I can tell, “Go ahead and hit her again.” Add that to the apparent dismissive attitude of Panetta towards Speaker Pelosi’s allegations (I think that he referred to it as ‘noise’), and you get the feeling that the CIA is prepared to be the brick wall that the Speaker is pounding her head against for as long as the Speaker feels like pounding. That suggests that there’s a lot of paperwork still out there that can accidentally-on purpose show up when the time is right.

While this is funny to watch on a personally partisan level, after it’s all done we really should overhaul our information disclosure / whistle-blower procedures. Karmic payback is all very well, but eventually this mindset is going to adversely affect people who I’ll mind seeing put through the wringer.

Moe Lane

*That’s what The Minority Report is calling it. Personally, I find cramming everything into a “X-gate” designation has long since jumped the shark, but custom is king of all.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

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COMMENTS

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  • andy42302

    [This was not an adequate response to Jeff. Particularly since I've seen your other writings, which pretty much confirmed that your attempt at a reasonable tone previously found here was a lie. - Moe Lane]

    [PS: It's not our fault you picked the wrong moral side. - ML]

  • gekster

    Someone that seems to be put on the sidelines is Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. His false info did helped build the imaginary link between Saddam and bin Ladin that allowed Bush to build a case that Iraq had something to do with 9/11

    the saddam/Bin-Laddin link.

  • Next93

    N/T

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    Many Diaries exist see here covering all that including the UN agreement the US is part of. So, if you want it to be known as Torture your lefty loons in Congress could so make it so by passing a new Law stating that it would now be considered Torture…. They have NOT attempted to do so since they took power in 2006…. Nor will they now…… They know it is a LOSER and they will NOT give up the EIT’s under a Democrat despite their BS rhetoric about it. You waste time and space with that easily refuted crap and we are NOT going to waste our time when we’ve covered it countless times already (see the link).

  • http://bluecollarmuse.com Blue_Collar_Muse

    Doesn’t that sort of make this lil back and forth something of a civil war; or cannibalism; or cutting off a nose to spite a face; or folks tussling to a Pyrrhic victory; or a Mexican standoff gone horribly wrong (or wonderfully right – depending on perspective) or more stuff that smart peeps like you can add to the list?

    I wonder what Pelosi thought and was thinking. Panetta is an Obama appointee and fellow Dem traveler. Did the Speaker think because there was an appointee at the helm she could snipe at those under him with impunity? This is all over stuff that took place under Bush so Panetta could have piled on. But he didn’t. Interesting.

    Perhaps there’s more to this than meets the eye. Why is Panetta standing atop Moe’s wall yelling down, “You want some of this? Bang your head against it again, girlfriend!”

    He’s an Obama guy and a former Clinton guy and the PUMA controversy would have to include Hillary which this does not. Does anyone know if Panetta and Pelosi crossed swords back when he was the gatekeeper to the President in the 90s? Because I can’t figure the angle.

    Pelosi’s motivation is pretty clear. But what is up with Panetta? What does he gain by his actions. He could toe the Prez’s line and beat the snot out of the CIA for their evil lack of spine and caving to the whims of the Emperor President Bush. He could eviscerate the CIA as the Prez has done. He could take control over an org by virtue of a couple of percentage points at the polls and destroy what about half of the country is appreciative of. But he didn’t.

    Why? The $64,000 question. If any of you can answer it, see Moe for your $64K.

  • IJB

    This was covered on FNC’s “Special Report” today. The gist of it is that CIA was already demoralized when Slobama went over there and gave his little speech and promptly released those memos.

    If Panetta failed to hit back on this second Nan thing, he would have lost the confidence of everyone at Langley, and would have been out the door.

    As an aside – it is now clear that Obama has lined up on the side of wanting San Fran Nan *GONE*. Don’t think for a minute that Panetta didn’t check with Slobama before firing off this response to Nan.

    With Obama wanting her gone, expect the CIA to release the notes of those meetings by next week, and expect Nan to “lose” the confidence of the Dem members of the House the week after.

    I now think Pelosi will be out as Speaker (and she may even possibly resign the House) by the end of May/beginning of June.

    I’ve seen this show before, and it always ends the same way.

    (And, FTR, I’m the camp that would rather have Nan stick around, as I think it’s better for GOP prospects. Still, the Dems ran against both Gingrich and Delay after they left the House – so I guess the GOP can still run against Pelosi in 2010 even if she’s gone by then!)

  • RJD

    article actually states what I’ve been thinking all along. This whole “controversy” is nothing more than a power grab by the Obama Administration. As much I don’t want to give them that much credit, Axelrod and Emanuel are probably shrewd enough to orchestrate this episode.

    Who is favored to replace Pelosi once she steps down?

  • Aaron Gardner

    Well JLenard gave you the link…and you haven’t come back yet….I am guessing you probably will be back tomorrow with some horrendous link *proving* that the U.S. engages in torture.

    I got two bucks on Japanese water cure.

  • Amy Miller

    …Or save it for another time?

  • rbdwiggins

    Steny Hoyer narrowly lost to Pelosi in his bid for Speaker following the Democratic take-over in ’06.

    He doesn’t share Pelosi’s incompetence.

  • Aaron Gardner

    Ya gotta wait until they have taken the bait at least…;^)

  • Amy Miller

    …ITCHING to test it out. ::grumble grumble::

  • antisocial

    I am conflicted on the motive…
    Either Obama wants Pelosi out. Or this is an effort to deflect attention from Obama’s radical Agenda…

  • Socrates

    But then, you thought I was right first :-) .

    The left is trying to make hay out of the idea that people were waterboarded to get them to confess that there were WMD in Iraq and that Al Qaeda and Saddam were in league.

    The trouble with that line of thinking is that such a confession would be useless unless it came with proof. What could the Bush Admin have done, if hypothetically, they had used torture (or even waterboarding) to extract a confession like that? Trumpet it to the media? Yeah, right.

    No. If they used EIT to get at WMD info or an Iraq-AQ link, it was to find those threats, in order to neutralize them, not to score political points.

    Loren

  • mbecker908

    My friend Dave and would be happy to educate you on that account. And after we’re done, Dave will demonstrate why waterboarding is not torture using a high speed dental drill, a dental pick and a can of freon.

    We’ll be happy to meet any evening at your convenience.

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    they just have to insist on polluting any/every Diary addressing the PELOSI IS LYING and try and DEFLECT with that tired old …. yeah but….. BS….. easy to dismiss them as I did and we will have to in every Diary because we know they will show up knowing the lefty-loon is easily distracted with that “torture” BS if we let it unchallenged — WE CANNOT LET THIS DIARY BE TROLL-JACKED and taken off topic!

    LURKERS – This is about SHE LIED, SHE CONTINUES TO LIE, SHE CHANGES THE LIE DAILY, SHE AIDS-AND-COMFORTS OUR ENEMIES WITH THESE LIES…..

    Liberals, weakening America and aiding our enemies on an HOURLY basis.

  • IJB

    It’s more likely to pass with Hoyer in charge than that idiot Pelosi.

  • rbdwiggins

    Yep, that’s it. And, on an early seventies model Atari to boot.

  • antisocial

    on the “dream” leftist agenda.

  • DamnCat

    …anyone who says (as does Hoyer) that they believe Pelosi is calling Panetta a liar and impuning the CIA.

    It will be fun to see who else she drags into this.

  • Tbone

    If I really need to know what you know, you had better tell me.

  • http://fairfaxgardener.blogspot.com ddstrain

    This has presented Obama with the perfect opportunity to consolidate power. Use Paneta to cripple Pelosi. The House gets a bit less shrill. The nationalization/socialization of … well … everything … can move on quietly.

    Pelosi’s Marxism is just to loud, obnoxious and shrill for Obama to move his Stalinist agenda. Pelosi just draws too much attention.

    Just Chicago cult of personality Stalinism v. Bay Area utopianist Marxism.

  • 6eorge Jetson

    the Obama camp wanted Pelosi out from the start, or, Pelosi fumbled and the Obama team wanted to distance itself quickly from this circus, this latest Panetta statement sure looks to me like the

    If that’s the case, conservatives might as well make score a couple of lightning body blows this week on the lame duck Pelosi, but realize that this Republican-favoring political background music is soon going to pass.

    Another high-profile Democrat shamed—Check
    The lefty torture narrative weakened—Check
    Early round to the Republicans—Check

    Back to the corners

  • vettepilot

    I definitely think, however, that it is an effort to drive out Pelosi. If Obama was in any way concerned about morale at the CIA, I don’t see why he would have nominated a total outsider with no intelligence experience who’s primary qualification was that he was a member of Clinton’s staff. Nor would he have released the memos in the first place. He’s got plans for the CIA, probably similar to his plans for the military, but he’s going to extract as much political gain as he can before he handicaps them (any more than he already has, anyway).

    No, he is unleashing Panetta on Pelosi because he knows that the attention span of the American media, and hence the American population, is short enough that if Pelosi is forced to step down, we’ll all forget that it wasn’t JUST Pelosi that was using the release of these memos for nothing more than political purposes. Never let a crisis go to waste, right? Panetta comes out looking like a hero to the officers in the CIA, Obama plays the tough “bipartisan” by kneecapping one of his own, and we all forget that Nan was just one of the majority who played this game…

  • IJB

    Every Leftist movement/revolution/etc. shows this.

    Pelosi & Obama may share the same political agenda – but their personal agendas are diametrically opposed: both want to be the head of the serpent. And only one can be that, in the end.

    Ergo: Pelosi has to go.

    (Which has the added benefit of making it that much easier for Slobama to get his agenda through Congress…)

  • http://beaglescout.wordpress.com LJ “Beaglescout” Miller

    And Hoyer is the next in line if Pelosi resigns or loses the speaker position. If he’s saying the same thing he’s going to pay for it too.

    This could be a pretty good spectator sport.

  • 6eorge Jetson

    Unless the TOTUS is in cohoots with the TOTH, I don’t see how Obama could have directed the series of events. Perhaps the Obama team could have set the bait, but even if that was the case, it was up to Pelosi to fall for it.

    In any event, once Pelosi asserted that the CIA misled her, the game had changed. Whether Obama is viewing this as damage management, damage management first with a residual opportunity, or an outright net opportunity, it sure looks like he’s throwing Pelosi under the bus.

  • Flagstaff

    Why not?

    Panetta may just be motivated by a desire to do the right thing for his agency or for his country, or it may be more than that.

    Obama has nullified the Clintons by putting Hillary in a position that he can completely control, which in turn puts Bill in a position where he’s unlikely to be critical of Obama (which would be unlikely in any case). But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t Clinton loyalists in the administration, ready and willing to undermine Obama and his supporters whenever possible.

    Suppose that Leon Panetta is one of them. What better opportunity is he going to get to make Nan look bad and Obama look amateurish at the same time? She is providing all the ammunition; all he has to do is turn it back on her. And that’s exactly what he’s doing.

    Don’t believe for a minute that she isn’t aware that she’s stepped in it, either. Notice that her latest on the subject amounts to “I wasn’t actually saying that the CIA had misled me. They were fine. It was the nasty Bush Administration led by the evil Dick Cheney who lied to me, not the CIA. Cheney did it! Bush did it! Their lawyers did it! Off with their heads!!!!” (Sentence first, no trial necessary or desirable)

    She’s backing way off of any criticism of the CIA and trying to aim her weapons at Bush. And if you listen to NPR at all, you would think that she was perfectly logical in her statement, because they never put them all together.

    If she successfully gets the attention diverted from her former claim of CIA “misleading information” and “lies,” her friends in the media will have her back (and Obama’s). But if Panetta presses the fight and more leaks (or outright press releases) come out, it might not be too much to guess that there is a Clintonian plot in play in the Maclean or even Foggy Bottom.

  • Flagstaff

    All actions are taken to score political points.

    They have no way to conceptualize a President who makes hard decisions to protect the country. Except to call him “Bushitler.”

  • Flagstaff

    Even if it is a photoshop job.

  • Flagstaff

    “Let’s you and him fight.”

  • GreyCloak

    Something is missing in all of this: George Tenet was appointed CIA Director in July 1997 by Bill Clinton, and was the most prominent Democrat kept on by the GW Bush administration until July 2004.

    Leon Panetta was Clinton’s Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997; Obama appointed him CIA Director.

    All the waterboarding took place under Tenet’s leadership … allegedly supervised by the House Oversight Committee of which Pelosi was ranking Democrat.

    It is obvious that Congressional oversight committees are better at overlooking than overseeing … just look at the Banking Committees.

    But Pelosi was RESPONSIBLE for oversight. ANY claims that she was “mislead” or “didn’t know about” are COMPLETELY facetious … If true, she did not do her job … if false, she’s a liar.

  • smagar

    What a name! Almost as good as “The Writ of Common Wisdom.”

    Does the Redstate Store carry them?

  • davod

    The conservatives need to keep their eyes on what Obama is doing while this dog and pony show proceeds. He and the Congress have already almost socialized important parts of the economy – be carefull they do not complete the project wile the country is preoccupied.

  • NotSoBlueStater

    The Democrats too often behave as though they are having a private conversation between themselves and the Huffington Post. The rest of the world — their political opponents, our enemies — are listening, too.

    If the Democrats don’t wake up and remember this — and quickly — this could spin way out of their control. Saying “the CIA lied!”, then trying to spin that into “Bush Lied!”? Lame.

  • wolfgang

    The speaker is probably already agitating the Whitehouse for another body as the head of CIA, any body a little more pliable, more flexible than Leon.
    It’s embarassing for the Democratic Party to have their lies hanging out in full view with a million spotlights shining on the lies.

  • WarEagle01

    “I find cramming everything into a ?X-gate? designation has long since jumped the shark,”

  • ocleverone

    Wouldn’t Hoyer be next in line for the Speakership? While Nancy said early on she would do as she likes, I don’t think Hoyer has stepped out of the lockstep shuffle those clowns dance to.

  • janis

    Porter Goss, who was at the briefing when Nancy was, also put paid to her lying. Pelosi is not in a position to agitate the White House over ANYTHING at this point. She’s the equivalent of a leper at a Debutante Ball and Obama isn’t going to want anything to do with her.

    Besides, The Imperial Pelosi was quoted as saying that Obama would have to work with Congress if he wanted to get anything done right after he was elected. When I read that, I knew that she was living on borrowed time anyway. This is the best reason to get rid of her know. Many Dems despise the woman themselves.

  • antisocial

    Under attack Pelosi is what suits Obama. Although white house did not direct series of events they certainly started playing when Pelosi went ballistic…. After that CIA leaked… Then Pelosi Panicked… Then Panetta’s Keep it up…. Expect more leaks.

    Just like a good communist Agenda is more important for Obama than anything else. See everybody is talking about Pelosi. Focus shifted from spending, debt and taxes. Nobody is talking about Obama’s unemployment numbers. Nobody is talking about GM/Chrysler dealership closures (bid dealerships getting the stick). No talk of Soda/Salt/chips taxes :-)

  • path

    you know this how?

  • clintonformccain

    As you can see from my alias here, I’ve followed Democratic politics for a while and read most of the insider accounts of the Clinton administration. While there well may be some personal California politics animosity between Panetta and Pelosi (I don’t know), Panetta has been a pretty stand-up guy as far as career politicians go, putting service to his country higher than most pols. He served admirably as Clinton’s chief of staff and I suspect most Republican operatives would give him credit for that. He’s not a hack like Emmanuel.

    I strongly suspect that Panetta takes his job as bossman at the CIA very seriously and is doing what is best for his agency and the intelligence capabilty of his country. The Speaker of the House called his people liars and he’s hitting back hard in defense of the agency.

    I’m just disgusted by the way Obama has handled this. If he wants to change the policy on interrogations, fine. He won. There was, however, no need to open the whole can of worms. He should have just changed the policy, said that whatever happened in the past is the past and we aren’t going there. Instead, he lit a match to this whole “truth commission” meme and I would like nothing better than to see a bunch of Dems (starting with Pelosi) get burned.

    I’m digusted by what the President has done to undermine our intelligence agencies in a time when intelligence is really our only effective weapon against terrorism. The work that was done by the intelligence agencies post 9/11 was outstanding in crippling the Al Queda networks. I don’t have to agree with every technique used to appreciate that the prior administration was acting in good faith tryng to decide some very complex issues with no clear right answers in regard to intelligence gathering after 9/11. The issues surrounding e-mail and phone data mining are incredibly difficult to grapple with.

  • Flagstaff

    Simply by allowing the idea of criminal prosecution or disbarment proceedings against the Bush administration lawyers to have any life at all TBP has hurt his own credibility and all administrations to come. That can’t be undone, no matter what Obama/Congressional Democrats decide to do in the future about the issue.

  • aesthete

    n/t

  • Warrior

    n/t

  • gekster

    sorry it took three days to notice.