Sunlight Cure for Murkiness

ABC breathlessly reports that Speaker Nancy Pelosi "was briefed on the use of 'enhanced interrogation techniques' on terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah in September 2002, according to a report prepared by the Director of National Intelligence's office and obtained by ABC News," thus insinuating once again that Pelosi has known about waterboarding all along.

The only problem is that the update to their story effectively admits there's no real evidence to make that claim—and Marcy details the disparities between what information is actually available and what's being concluded and reported here.

On the other hand, Pelosi did say at a news conference last month: "In that or any other briefing, we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used. What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel…opinions that they could be used, but not that they would."

So, there appears to be some parsing going on here; the truth may be that Pelosi was not told that waterboarding had been used, but had been told other EITs had been, which would still make her recent statements not entirely truthful, ahem.

Then again, maybe she's telling the truth. Or maybe Nancy Pelosi really was briefed on waterboarding—but I wonder if our media could possibly wait until there's actual proof of that before reporting it for the third, or fourth, or wevthefuck time?

All of which prompts me to second Spencer who advocates "the case for an independent commission to investigate the Bush administration, the CIA, the Justice Department, the Defense Department, the State Department and Congress about torture. No more lies, no more obfuscation, no more cant, no more excuses, no more torture." Which, naturally, will never happen.

I'll just be over here dancing in the dark.