Gingrich: Pelosi ‘Lied,’ ‘Despicable,’ ‘Dishonest,’ ‘Vicious,’ ‘Trivial’

posted at 4:14 pm on May 15, 2009 by Michael van der Galien
[ Congress ]   

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has joined the forces attacking current Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Most readers will know by now that Pelosi said for years that she opposed Enhanced Interrogation Techniques passionately. They constituted torture, she said, and she even talked about prosecuting the Bush officials who allowed the CIA to use them on captured terrorists.

This year we found out that the CIA informed Pelosi about EIT’s years ago. She knew all about them in 2003 or even in 2002. Yet, when she was informed about what the techniques were exactly, she did not object to them.

Pelosi responded angrily, claiming that the CIA was lying. She was never told by them! She never knew! It was all purely hypothetical.

Right, until a report was presented to Congress and the CIA continued to leak information which showed that not the intelligence organization but the speaker herself was lying.

Pelosi has been under fire for weeks now. She has changed her story (and timeline) so many times that you have to wonder how she keeps track of them all. There is little doubt about who is and who is not lying here: Pelosi is obfuscating, spinning, twisting, distorting and, yes, lying through her teeth in order to save her own sorry butt.

But we will not play along, of course, and neither do Republican leaders like Gingrich who said today that Pelosi “has lied to the House” in claiming that she was never briefed by the CIA about the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding and other harsh tactics.

“I think she has lied to the House, and I think that the House has an absolute obligation to open an inquiry, and I hope there will be a resolution to investigate her. And I think this is a big deal. I don’t think the Speaker of the House can lie to the country on national security matters,” Gingrich said.

He continued: “I think this is the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

“She is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowist of purposes, and she dishonors the Congress by her behavior.”

He added that “Speaker Pelosi’s the big loser, because she either comes across as incompetent, or dishonest. Those are the only two defenses. The fact is she either didn’t do her job, or she did do her job and she’s now afraid to tell the truth.”

Gingrich is right, of course. 

Meanwhile, other Democrats are doing nothing to defend Pelosi. As far as the Obama White House seems to be concerned, she can consider herself as being thrown under the bus. And other Democrats realize she’s toxic, and are distancing themselves from her pretty rapidly.

Some have wondered whether Republicans are overplaying their hand. Perhaps. But can you blame them? This is a terrific opportunity to slap down one of the worst partisan and ideological hacks in Congress.

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