The Political Whore

It may have been the worst news conference performance by a sitting Speaker of the House ever. Yesterday, Nancy Pelosi harmed her own cause and ratcheted up the torture debate in a newser in which she parsed her knowledge of CIA waterboarding briefings and accused the spy agency of lying to Congress.

Even Florida’s former Sen. Bob Graham (and his infamous lil’ notebooks) has leapt to her side, telling HuffPo that he, too, was lied to by the CIA about torture tactics and use. From that interview:

“When this issue started to resurface I called the appropriate people in the agency and said I would like to know the dates from your records that briefings were held,” Graham recalled. “And they contacted me and gave me four dates — two in April ‘02 and two in September ‘02. Now, one of the things I do, and for which I have taken some flack, is keep a spiral notebook of what I do throughout the day. And so I went through my records and through a combination of my daily schedule, which I keep, and my notebooks, I confirmed and the CIA agreed that my notes were accurate; that three of those four dates there had been no briefing. There was only one day that I had been briefed, which was September the 27th of 2002.”

Video of the full Pelosi news conference after the jump.

And here is how MSNBC played it:

So where does the truth stand in all of this? It’s muddy.

• Liberal Media Matters defends Pelosi and says the nets are ignoring a caveat on the original CIA notes that say they may not be accurate accounts of the briefings.
• The Hill says this is a classic “change the subject” move by Republicans, since Pelosi didn’t participate in ordering the torture and certainly doesn’t condone it today.
• Pelosi, however, raised the stakes in the fight over future torture investigations and possible criminal prosecutions by accusing the CIA of lying to Congress, Political Wire says.
• “Pelosi, CIA should have one of those Twitter fights, loser goes to jail.” — Wonkette

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