Of Shameless Self Promotion

I got into blogging after commenting on blogs all over the web. The thing about it is some days my blogging will be slow because I still love to leave comments and debate all over the net. One of the places I comment the most is Greg Sargent's The Plum Line blog and it just so happens that I got a shout out in a post today. I had been arguing since last week that President Obama wasn't really trying to call of the dogs, ie liberal and progressive groups, from attacking ConservaDems on the public option. It turns out that yesterday Organizing For America which is President Obama's own activist group ALSO started targeting Senators from both sides of the aisle on health care reform including a public option. And I just so happened to point that out in a comment last night which earned me a hat tip this morning in a new post. So I am feeling pretty full of win today!

Lets see if I can't keep it going all day.

More Weaksauce From Senate Democrats On GITMO

Greg Sargent talked to the aides for some Democratic Senators about closing GITMO and here is what they had to say.

The aides provide an interesting perspective on the fluidity of the situation, hinting at the extent of the breach that has opened up between the White House and Congressional Dems on this issue — and the extent of the work that will be required to repair that breach.

“Dems really want to work with him on this, but felt as though their flank was exposed,” is how one senior Democratic leadership aide put it. This aide said that the speech yesterday won’t do much to get Dems on board in the short term, barring “a detailed plan” from the White House on what to do with the detainees that will give cover to members of Congress to reconsider their opposition.

This aide predicts that a Department of Defense authorization bill coming up this summer is the most likely place where the issue will be revisited.

Another Democratic aide said that the burden is on Obama to move public opinion on the issue if he wants members of Congress on board. Members are relieved that the president is finally “out there with his bully pulpit,” this aide says. But she added: “Members will follow public opinion on this.”

First of all what public opinion polls are these idiots looking at? Every single one I have seen has a plurality that wants GITMO closed. But besides that what kind of cowards have we elected that they are going to follow public opinion rather than lead on this issue?! Hell I guess its a good thing Harry Reid and his minions weren't in the Senate back in 1964 when the Civil Rights Act was up for a vote. If they were I would probably still be having to eat in the "black" section of restaurants. I don't know who is behind this coward ass bullshit but I do know that Harry Reid is the ring leader and its going to be my mission in life to get that idiot out of the Senate if they don't remove him as Majority Leader. There is no excuse to have the kinds of advantages we have now in Congress and hold the White House and still run around scared of our own shadow on National Security issues. If the Democrats in the Senate are too afraid of Republicans to close GITMO and house some detainees in SuperMax prisons then its high time we got some better damned Democrats elected in their place!

Why Everyone Should Read Greg Sargent's Blog

All day since Nancy Pelosi said that the CIA had misled her in her briefing in 2002 I have seen people from every political stripe question whether the CIA intelligence report proved that Nancy Pelosi had been briefed on waterboarding or if it hadn't. The point of contention is the wording of the entry where it say she and Porter Goss were briefed on techniques that had already been used. That's big because we now know that Abu Zubaydah had been waterboarded already by the time Speaker Pelosi attended that briefing. But the thing about it is Greg Sargent noticed that wording on the very day the report came out last week. And he didn't wait for Speaker Pelosi to make a statement. Instead like a REAL journalist he asked the CIA what it really meant:

In the newly-released documents detailing the torture briefings given to members of Congress, the portion describing Pelosi’s single briefing says she was told about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in general, but doesn’t specify whether she was told about the use of waterboarding. That was specified about some briefings given to others.

I asked CIA spokesperson Paul Gimigliano why. His answer: Because the notes and memos on the Pelosi meeting that form the basis for the docs didn’t allow them to go that far, meaning that they didn’t specify that she’d been briefed on waterboarding in particular.

Now can we find a way to get the MSM to report this so we can move on from this stupid sidenote? The CIA, in their own words, have no proof that Speaker Pelosi was specifically briefed on waterboarding. Now would be a good time to get the focus back on who ORDERED the torture rather than who was briefed or not briefed on it.

ABC News Should Post A Retraction

All day today the cable news shows have been buzzing over an ABC News story about the CIA intelligence report on the briefings given to Congressional leaders over the torture program. To hear ABC News tell it the report proved that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was lying when she said she wasn't briefed on Abu Zubaydah having been waterboarded. And dutifully all of the cable news shows repeated this throughout the day. Well Greg Sargent over at the Plum Line Blog (did I mention his blog is awesome) actually did some REAL investigative reporting and he called the CIA and came up with this.

In the newly-released documents detailing the torture briefings given to members of Congress, the portion describing Pelosi’s single briefing says she was told about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in general, but doesn’t specify whether she was told about the use of waterboarding. That was specified about some briefings given to others.

I asked CIA spokesperson Paul Gimigliano why. His answer: Because the notes and memos on the Pelosi meeting that form the basis for the docs didn’t allow them to go that far, meaning that they didn’t specify that she’d been briefed on waterboarding in particular.

In a statement to me, he explained that that “the language in the chart” is “faithful to the language in the records.”

“Nothing is being hidden or hyped,” he continued. “CIA is simply being true to the records. That’s all there is to it.”

Now to be clear this doesn't qualify as proof that Speaker Pelosi wasn't briefed on waterboarding, but what it does do is prove that the CIA didn't have any information that showed that she WAS briefed on Abu Zubaydah having been waterboarded and thus no such information could have been in or inferred from the report. I will now patiently await the retraction from ABC News that I know will not be forthcoming.

The Cheney Document

Greg Sargent over at The Plum Line got his hands on the actual CIA intelligence report detailing the briefings that were given to members of Congress on EITs. But I just noticed something about one briefing in particular.

Briefed on Interrogation Techniques, including waterboarding, abdominal slap, and sleep deprivation. Also briefed on actionable intelligence derived from use of EITs.

That is from the 7-15-2004 briefing which was attended by Republican Pat Roberts and Democrat John Rockefeller. I thought that date sounded familiar so I went back through some of Greg's older posts and found the one where he got his hands on the documents Dick Cheney used to ask the CIA to declassify information that he said will prove that torture worked.(Greg has a way of getting his hands on important documents that has lead me to nickname his blog the scoop factory) And interestingly enough the date of he document Cheney requested is from 7-13-2004. Coincidence? I think not. I would say that its time for some journalists to give Rockefeller a call to see if he will say what they were told in 2004 about the efficacy of the CIA detainee torture program.