San Francisco, CA.--Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi began a book tour last week touting the sequel to her previous book entitled “Know Your Power: A Message to America’s Daughters,” in which Pelosi drew from her political experiences to encourage young women to step up to challenges and opportunities.Her new book, entitled “Know Your Cower,” is based on more recent political experiences in which Pelosi was fully briefed on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, in 2002. She acquiesced in those techniques without offering any objections. But now, says Pelosi, she’s had to deny her approval in the face of outrage from her leftist base, which calls those techniques “torture.”
Says Pelosi, “My first book talked about how with power comes responsibility. My new book builds on that message, and adds that with power comes deniability as well.”
Pelosi originally claimed the CIA briefing she attended did not include a discussion of “any” enhanced interrogation techniques, but the Office of the Director of National Intelligence subsequently released a document that made clear Pelosi was not only briefed on such techniques, but she was also briefed on their “use.”
Pelosi read portions of her book yesterday to a gathering of young girls who sat around her on the floor at a San Francisco bookstore. “Life will present you with many opportunities to take responsibility for your decisions,” she told them. “And when that happens,” she said, leaning toward the kids with her hands curled like a clawing tiger, “you need to run, children -- run as fast as you can!”
One girl who attended, named Sandy, said she asked Pelosi how she squared her previous statement with the more recent report that contradicted her. “She just looked at me with eyes as big as saucers, covered her ears, and started humming,” said Sandy. “I’m going to remember that technique the next time I’m interrogated about decisions I’ve made in the past!”
Another girl was less impressed with Pelosi’s humming. “I get the deniability part,” she said afterward. “But the deniability has to be, you know, plausible and stuff.”
Associated articles: Fox News; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664_pf.html; http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/05/intelligence-re.html; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042403339.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns; http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0409/Pelosi_Officials_said_they_wouldnt_use_waterboarding.html; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124182533815302417.html; http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjU1ZGI3ZGM0Zjc1ZDg1MzQyMmQ3NDQyMGIzNWM3ODA=; http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22448.html; http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/cia-director-fires-back-at-pelosi-2009-05-15.html; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124701436661709153.html#mod=todays_us_opinion
