You can tell that CNN's Dana Bash wants to help out Nancy Pelosi. But she just can't. Pelosi seems determined to rumble, bumble, and stumble herself into trouble on the waterboarding matter.
What Pelosi has already done was to take an enormous amount of the spotlight she wanted to shine on purported "crimes" of the Bush administration and instead shine it on her sloppy lying about how much she herself knew.
This morning's press conference made things even worse for her.
Here's the CNN video clip. You'll notice that Rick Sanchez isn't quite as soft on Pelosi as Bash would like to be. But, in the end, even Bash has to admit Pelosi is making a very bad job of this issue.
Commenting on this clip (and on the press conference itself), NRO's Rory Cooper writes --
This morning Nancy Pelosi briefed the media on her knowledge of enhanced interrogation techniques, and we are guessing spent the rest of the day trying to unspill the milk. Aside from the torture inflicted on viewers of this disaster of a news conference, Nancy Pelosi created a brand new version of events to explain how she wasn’t aware of what she definitely was aware of.
While trying to jump out of the way of a moving freight train, she tried to drag the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency onto the tracks. Luckily, America knows whom to believe in this integrity contest. Speaker Pelosi also tried to criminalize policy differences with the Bush administration (despite actually having no policy differences by the way). And what is her answer to everything? A Truth Commission. Something straight out of an Orwellian novel. That would be ideal for the Speaker, so long as it doesn’t focus on her.
And finally, you had the Speaker calling for the further release of classified material. Following the pattern set by the President, Speaker Pelosi is completely comfortable asking to declassify Top Secret information when 1) she knows it likely won’t happen, and 2) it suits her politically. She is not so forthcoming when former Vice President Dick Cheney asks for similar information to be declassified and is turned down.
It is time for a serious discussion on how America is currently fighting terrorism. Reviewing 2002 and 2003 events may and will continue to embarrass the Speaker, but the value to our nation is shining a light on current policies. What are President Obama’s policies on interrogation? What will President Obama do with detainees at Guantanamo Bay in 6 months? What “Contingency Operations” are being planned and are President Obama and Nancy Pelosi doing everything in their power to stop them? We’re crossing our fingers for another news conference tomorrow. (Please?)
