Deep in Denial

Was there anyone in power from 2001 and on who didn’t approve of torture? Certainly, it seems, not Nancy Pelosi:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi learned in early 2003 that the Bush administration was waterboarding terror detainees but didn’t protest directly out of respect for “appropriate” legislative channels, a confidant of the San Francisco Democrat said Monday.

The Pelosi camp’s version of events is intended to answer two key questions posed by her critics: When, precisely, did she first learn about waterboarding? And why didn’t she do more to stop it?

Pelosi has disputed a CIA document, released last week, that shows she was briefed in September 2002 on the “particular” interrogation techniques the United States had used on Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah. Pelosi has said she was told then only that the Bush administration was considering using certain techniques in the future — and that it had the legal authority to do so.

You know what this reminds me of? John Kerry’s lame denial, back in the 2004 election, that just because he voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq in ’03, didn’t mean he ever expected President Bush to use it. That’s like giving me a sixth icy cold martini, then being shocked, shocked to find me under your table.