Watching Rachel Maddow last night interview Nancy Pelosi, it was very refreshing, but all too rare, to see some actual "olde tyme" journalism taking place. Between segments of her taped interview with Pelosi, Rachel picks up where most other establishment media types drop the ball -- she actually provides context of, and expounds on, what has just been said. The House speaker's answers are often challenged in thoughtfully critical ways, and inconsistencies are pointed out. I highlight some below.
The full transcript and video are here.
Here's Rachel asking Speaker Pelosi about some congressional oversight issues in the House --
MADDOW: You've been outspoken about contempt of Congress charges related to the politicization of the Justice Department and that investigation. You have been less specific about how Congress should proceed on wireless warren less wiretapping and torture.
Why is that?
PELOSI: Well, I haven't been less specific, because we're waiting what we had in the bill -- which I did not like the bill, part of the bill that was positive, the FISA bill, was an inspector general. We will have an inspector general's report in July about the conduct of the government in the collection in our country.
Mr, Senator Leahy has a proposal, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is a good idea. What I have some concern about there is it has immunity. And I think that some of the issues involved here, like politicizing of the Justice Department, and the rest, may have criminal ramifications, and I don't think we should be giving them immunity.
But we'll find a way to go forward -- because American people want us to go forward -- but also making sure that the Constitution's respected -- and that's what our issue is, whether you’re talking about separation of power, whether you’re talking about Karl Rove, Josh Bolten, and the others at the White House, not responding to subpoenas by the Congress on the subject of the Justice Department politicizing. And so those issues are still alive.
We're in the courts on those, we're in negotiations with the administrations, both the Bush administration and the Obama administration, about how the executive branch responds to the legislative branch honoring our Constitution. I don't -- I'm not -- I don’t want to look back, I want to go forward, but as we try to have reconciliation, I'm a little hesitant to have immunity.
What you may be used to seeing from most reporters after receiving an answer is the guest's statement being allowed to stand unquestioned and unexamined -- but this is Rachel Maddow, and she's not done --
MADDOW: And if that inspector general...
PELOSI: More than a little bit hesitant, let me say. I don't think we should have immunity for some of those issues.
MADDOW: Then in terms of moving forward, if the inspector general report that comes out this summer suggests that there has been criminal activity at the official level on issues like torture, or warrant less wireless wiretapping, or rendition, or any of these other issues...
PELOSI: No one is above the law. The president has said that.
MADDOW: ... you would support a referral for a criminal investigation, potential prosecution.
PELOSI: Absolutely. No one is above the law, but we have to go through
-- we have to have the facts
I mean, we are unhappy about certain things, we anecdotally know about certain things. We will have the documentation of it, and we can go forward.
I don't know what other criminal investigations are going on concurrently, because they are not usually publicly disclosed. But I'm hopeful that as we go forward, the American people will have more confidence in their government and how we protect them. Get liberty and security, they're very compatible. You don't have to choose one or the other.
Yes! Rachel has just executed a rarely seen play in political interviews today -- the follow-through.
Here is Glen Greenwald, in one of several excellent articles he wrote ont the subject of
where Pelosi was on this issue last June.
And Rachel's not done grilling Pelosi on her questionable oversight, moving from FISA and criminal investigations to what the Speaker knew about the Bush administration's use of torture --
MADDOW: Let me ask you about one sort of thorny issue in this area, and I say it's thorny because it has been invoked by the Bush administration and its supporters as a way to try to deflect calls for this accountability.
In October, 2001, you were briefed as a member of the House Intelligence Committee issues. September, 2002, you were briefed on CIA, detention issues and enhanced interrogation issues.
Because of those briefings -- and I know that you expressed concern for the NSA after that October, 2001 briefing. You released that publicly in 2006. But you didn't express public concerns at the time after those briefings.
Does that raise a complication?
PELOSI: No. No, -- the fact is, they did not brief...well, first of all, we're not allowed to talk about what happens there but I can say they did not brief us with these enhanced interrogations that were taking place. They did not brief us. They were talking about an array of interrogations that they might have at their disposal.
MADDOW: Techniques in the abstract, as if they were not being used?
PELOSI: We were never told they were being used.
MADDOW: You were told they weren't being used?
PELOSI: Well, they just talked about them, but -- the inference to be drawn from what they told us was that these are things that we think could be legal. And we have a difference of opinion on that. But they never told us that they were being be used, because that would be a different story altogether.
We had many disagreements with them all along the way on how they collect information in our country and what they think might be acceptable. They have never gotten any comfort from me on any of those issues, no matter what they want to say publicly. And they know that I cannot speak specifically to the classified briefing of that kind.
But I can say flat out, they never told us that these enhancement interrogations were being used.
Pelosi dodges, weaves, and fakes, sounding at first as though she wants to deny that she was briefed at all, then changing to a strategy of obfuscation. Rachel tenaciously stays right with her, seeking clarification --
MADDOW: And they have said publicly -- they have cited those briefings as essentially congressional consent for what they did. And , A – you say the consent was not given, and B – you say you can not explain the extent to which consent was not given because you’re not allowed to discuss the briefing.
PELOSI: What I’m saying to you is they never told us that those techniques were being used.
MADDOW: But did they tell you that they think water boarding is legal now?
PELOSI: They may have given the inference that there were some debate that, that water boarding could be of course I disagree with that. But the issue is, are you going to use such a thing? And they had not ever briefed us that. That was the case.
Rachel does a great job here in the amount of detail she extracts from Pelosi. This gives me enough information to realize that Pelosi is being dishonest in insisting that she couldn't have known that torture was being implemented by the Bush administration because she was only briefed on legal hypotheticals and on what techniques could potentially be used. But all she (and others) had to do was ask the officials at the breifing what techniques are being (or would be) used! She never indicates that anyone made such a basic inquiry.
In the next segment, Pelosi is again caught in what seems to be some "untruthiness" --
MADDOW: The NSA responded to you with a letter, and I know...
PELOSI: It’s all redacted ,it’s all redacted.
MADDOW: And I printed it out, I actually have it because it's funny. So much has been redacted. What they released is absolutely nothing.
PELOSI: Like "Dear Congresswoman" Redact, redact, redact.
MADDOW: Sincerely yours,
PELOSI: Sincerely yours,
MADDOW: Exactly. But was there something in that letter that, and I know it’s redacted, so it can’t be released publicly. But was there something in that letter that made you feel like, you know what? I objected privately. I should not object publicly? I should not...
PELOSI: Well, you can't. You can't.
MADDOW: You can’t speak out about the content of what you have been briefed on – but isn’t there a way that you can say, I'm a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, I believe that we are doing something that we should not be doing?
PELOSI: You cannot do that publicly, and that's something that I think we have to change in terms of -- because your hands are pretty much tied. And we were relentless with them on this score in terms of questioning them on what they were doing and fighting them on it. And this is a very nature of battle, and it's one of the reasons I'm looking very closely at some of the appointments in the Obama administration, to make sure that nobody who had anything to do with this in the Bush administration has any cloak of authority and experience, and should be appointed at any level, advisory or at any level in the Bush Administration.
MADDOW: But you think the rules should be changed in terms of what members...
PELOSI: No -- who can you go to? Can you go to the chief justice of the Supreme Court? Can you -- these are issues, mind you, that you can't even talk to your staff about. I have a security adviser, but we can't talk -- you can't talk to anybody about it.
And that just isn't right, because it gives all the cards to the administration. And then if you say anything about it, you have violated our national security. And it shouldn't be that way.
Now I'm not a legal scholar of any type, but I find it difficult to believe that any of the significant cases of oversight of the executive branch, including Watergate and Iran-Contra, could have taken place if no one was allowed to indicate, even in a very general way, that the government was possibly doing something unethical or illegal. Rachel similarly seemed somewhat incredulous of Pelosi's responses. The speaker indicates that she would like to see the rules changed to allow more freedom in revealing wrongdoing, but like similar CYA arguments made by the Bush administration and members of Congress last year, those rules seem to already be in place. Constitutional scholars including, Jonathan Turley and John Dean, have appeared on TV and radio many times arguing that the tools for oversight are there, they just aren't being used.
That Rachel Maddow can be such a standout by practicing what ought to be standard journalism is a testament to her, and speaks volumes about how badly eroded the profession in general (with respect to the "establishment media") has become in the past 20 or so years. I'm not sure how she gets away with such boldness and against-the-grain reporting, but I hope she not only continues with it for a long time, but sets a new trend for network reporting.