While the Republican noise machine, with a helpful assist from the traditional media, continues to pretend that our focus should be on Nancy Pelosi rather than the Bush administration's torture policies, The Plum Line reports that:
A spokesperson for the CIA is declining to clarify whether CIA director Leon Panetta is disputing Nancy Pelosi’s claim that the agency lied to her about the use of torture.
It has, of course, been widely reported that Panetta smacked back hard against Pelosi’s claim in that note he sent to CIA employees last week. But as Politico’s Josh Gerstein pointed out yesterday, a close reading of Panetta’s note shows clearly that he did not directly dispute Pelosi’s allegations. [...]
So I asked a CIA spokesperson whether it was the CIA’s position that Pelosi was not lied to, as she has claimed. The spokesperson declined to elaborate, instead saying that Panetta’s note would have to speak for itself.
Oh. So after non-stop coverage that Panetta disputed Nancy Pelosi's claim that the CIA misled her, thereby proving that she lied, it turns out that he didn't. Good to know. Not that it will change the coverage or the GOP talking points.