The media, at the apparent control of -- for now -- the Republicans are in the process of rewriting history regarding torture. We are hearing no counter messages on the news in the defense of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Nancy Pelosi did not commit any torture; if anybody, it was members of the Executive Branch who carried out all interrogations, of course, legal or illegal, but amazingly we are witnessing that a Democratic member of Congress is rapidly becoming molded into the person that the public associates with torture due to the media's incessant one-sided pairing of the words torture and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
As it stands Speaker Nancy Pelosi is currently being caught in a catch-22 with regard to speaking about torture. Nancy Pelosi and torture are being paired together all over the mainstream news this week.
I believe she cannot speak out to tell the truth and clear her name because she was sworn to secrecy by the Executive Branch when she originally received this information as is commonly the case with any classified national security information.
I believe this is still true today. She is still bound by law today, not to share classified information, along with any other recipients.
The media, at the apparent control of -- for now -- the Republicans are in the process of rewriting history regarding torture. We are hearing no counter messages on the news in her defense.
Nancy Pelosi did not commit any torture; if anybody did, it was members of the Executive Branch who carried out all interrogations, of course, legal or illegal, but amazingly we are witnessing that a Democratic member of Congress is rapidly becoming molded into the person that the public associates with torture due to the media's incessant one-sided pairing of the words torture and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Members of congress and senate who continue to say nothing at all perhaps in hopes of this matter simply going away on its own, are leaving Nancy Pelosi to swing in the wind and continue to be unfairly assaulted and propagandized on a daily basis by the Republican talking points. The Republicans are relentless and as we watch, their omnipresent media message is gaining ground even among Democrats. I heard the Republican theme about Nancy and Torture on NPR today. I did not hear any countermessage at all. Even last night Jon Stewart of the Daily Show has begun to fall in line with the Republican message and has taken shots at Nancy Pelosi, not even mentioning the perpetrators of torture in the Executive Branch as having any responsibility. The mainstream message is extremely one sided as long as Democratic party members like yourself stay quiet.
Nancy Pelosi is caught in a catch 22.
How long will it be before Speaker Pelosi has a nervous breakdown? The member of Conress did not execute any interrogations. The Executive Branch placed interrogation orders if any, and members of the Executive Branch also carried them out. But the public is being misled gravely about the culpability here.
Being granted immunity is the only way Nancy Pelosi can defend herself and finally be able to answer the questions the media keep throwign at her regarding interrogation that was carried out by the Executive Branch. Appointing a special prosecutor to investigate torture is the only way Speaker Pelosi is going to get any immunity to the laws regarding the classified information she received.
To any members of Congress who may be reading this: Your counterparts in the Republican party are well aware that it is illegal for her to speak about classified information, but they pretend not to know the answer to the question which they keep repeating through the loyal news media outlets. But so far you have taken no steps toward appointing a special prosecutor, and you have taken no steps to talk in the public media about who might really culpable about waterboarding that was already publicly admitted to by public officials of the United States.
Will you simply continue to watch as the Republican party twists our American history and makes Speaker Pelosi, of all people, the primary person the public remembers as being involved with torture, and not Mr. Cheney and not the CIA who apparently carried out the torture?
By extension, will you allow your own Democratic party to be painted by the omnipresent Republican media message to become the party associated with torture?
Will the Democratic party members like yourself allow Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be driven so far as to be kicked out of the House and replaced by a different Speaker, in some kind of misguided hope for you and your party to achieve a disconnection from Nancy Pelosi, and torture itself?
If Speaker Pelosi is in fact eventually driven out as Speaker by Republicans and Democrats who try to separate themselves from the issue altogether, don't you think the Republican Party would next seek to make sure that the Democratic Party itself would become known as "the party of torture" in the public eye? Of course they would.
You, Congressperson, Senator, need to prosecute torture. You need to appoint a special prosecutor. You need to grant immunity to Speaker Pelosi and other members of Congress who know about, but did not themselves commit, so-called "enhanced interrogations" which since waterboarding is well known to have been used, torture.
I have to believe that the whole point of the Executive Branch telling a few select members of Congress about the illegal activities executed or possibly executed by members of the Executive Branch a few years ago, and then swearing listeners to secrecy by penalty of law on national security grounds, was to be able to scapegoat them, and there was no other purpose.
These selected members of Congress were officially powerless to do anything with the classified information they received from the Executive Branch, and they could not even talk about it with other members of Congress, and the law made sure of that then, and now. And now the Republicans are running with it, for as long as you let them.
They are rewriting history as regards members of the Republican party who used to hold offices in the Exective Branch, and of Nancy Pelosi, and of the Democratic Party, if you let them.
Time is not your side if Democrats as a group remain quiet and allow the Republican Party a blank check to rewrite American history to their own designs as regards torture.