IS NANCY PELOSI DUMB, OR JUST REALLY STUPID IT'S GOT TO BE ONE OR THE OTHER

The entire World (minus Osama and his Camel Jockeys) seems to be in
perfect agreement.

http://news.google.com/news/story?hl=en&q=Nancy+pelosi+news&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=dwLMnqyv_VqSaQM&ei=48INSvfzO4SuMfW_1PgJ&sa=X&oi=news_result&ct=more-results&resnum=1

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/05/15/10_reasons_why_nancy_pelosi_is_in_deep_trouble_over_her_cia_outburst

10 reasons why Nancy Pelosi is in deep trouble over her CIA outburst
Posted By: Toby Harnden at May 15, 2009 at 17:08:26 [General]
Posted in: Foreign Correspondents
Tags:CIA, Nancy Pelosi

Could Nancy Pelosi eventually lose her job as Speaker of the House
over her incendiary allegation that the CIA lied to her and misled
Congress? It's possible and here's why:

1. Her shifting explanations about what she knew about water-boarding
and when she knew it indicate at the very least inconsistency and
economy with the truth. Check out some of her differing statements
here.

2. CIA briefers are professionals - being a briefer is a specialism
for fast-track career analysts within the Agency's Directorate of
Intelligence. A CIA briefing given to two senior members of Congress
without their staffs present is not a seat-of-the-pants kind of thing.
It's well-documented and very, very carefully done. It's hard to
imagine why the CIA would now want to lie about such a briefing.
Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, a former CIA spokeswoman, was on Fox just
now saying she knew the briefer and that he was a model of integrity.
That indicates he's well known within the Agency and wil be getting a
lot of support.

3. Pelosi's performance at her press conference was pitiful. Check out
two great accounts of it from the Washington Post's Dana Milbank here
and the Washington Times's Joe Curl here.

4. The derision for her performance yesterday is bipartisan.
Republicans are being much more vocal about it but Democrats are
laughing too.

5. Obama is trying very hard to placate the CIA, which is very unhappy
indeed over his release of the four memos about interrogation
techniques. Pelosi has cut right across that. Incurring the wrath of a
popular president is not a clever thing to do.

6. The mainstream media - a key factor in the political centre of
gravity - is not with her on this one. Check out the sceptical take of
the venerated greybeard Dan Balz of the Washington Post here.

7. There's little love lost between Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, the number
two Democrat in the House. She did't back him for the Whip job,
instead pushing her friend John Murtha, Pennsylvania's king of pork.
Glenn Thrush of Politico notes that his initial words yesterday were
not especially supportive.

8. Leon Panetta - a former colleague of Pelosi's in the House
delegation from California - was overruled by Obama on the release of
the four interrogation memos. He must be seething about Pelosi's
allegation and concerned about his credibility among CIA rank and
file. Panetta, a former White House chief of staff, is very well
connected among Democrats.

9. Pelosi's attempt to say that the CIA was lied to her about whether
water-boarding was being used because it wanted to divert attention
from lies over WMD was extremely clumsy and made no sense. As an
institution, the CIA was far from slavishly supportive of the Bush
administration - something that drew the ire of, for instance, Vice
President Dick Cheney. Trying to make the CIA a political football was
reckless - the Agency knows how to fight back and get its story out.

10. Her lapse into hard-Left talking points about how the CIA lies all
the time so it was hardly worth complaining about is out of tune with
the Obama administration, which wants to pretend at least to be trying
to occupying the centre ground. Her clear contempt for the concept of
"bipartisanship" - she'd rather ram her agenda through on a party-line
vote - had already put her at odds with Obama.

Ed Morrisey of Hot Air gets it about right: "I wouldn't predict her
ouster, but it wouldn't surprise me, either."

In other news..........YAWN
.

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