Whoever thinks Pelosi's career and reputation

[shraby]

wouldn't have been totally trashed if she had spoken up much earlier to the Republican noise machine about the torture is sitting around with plugs in their ears.
Look at what they are doing right now when everyone knows it was instigated by Cheney for the express purpose of linking Sadam to Al Qaida. They have her on the ropes not only with the media and the right wing, people in this forum are trashing her too.

Wake up and smell the coffee! If she had spoken out, it would have been totally useless because nothing would have done any good against Bushco.

[ananda]

1. Screw Pelosi. The law is the law.

Bush and Cheney are much worse.

Imagine if Pelosi had not been so compromised
and would have been willing to put prosecution
and impeachment on the table!

[shraby]

4. Impeachment MAY have passed in the House,

but it would have failed in the Senate and nothing would have been changed. The noise machine would have seen to that.

[WhiteTara]

10. but she so easily gave up her only

weapon against them and that was impeachment. She took it "off the table" before she hammered the first gavel and gave her famous "elections have consequences" speech. I have been disappointed with her from the beginning and I had such high hopes. I know she was in a very tough situation; but when she got Steny Hoyer as the whip instead of Murtha she got a Blue Dog and we got screwed and she was not well served.

[livefreest]

20. we still don't know if she was really briefed by the CIA about the precise torture

methods used. when her aid told her that waterboarding was being used, early 2003, the way i understand it is that she was no longer on the intelligence committee therefore maybe she was not supposed to be briefed?

[Deja Q]

2. What has she, herself, said on the subject(s)?

[WeDidIt]

3. Who said doing what was right was easy?

Whistle blowers do the right thing, not the easy thing.

Pelosi did the easy thing.

It's biting her in the ass now.

And sympathy for her over it has been taken off the table.

[cherokeeprogressive]

5. So you say. Those of us who wish she would have, don't care about her career...

OR her reputation.

Spike Lee made a movie years ago called "Do the Right Thing".

Having Nancy put this information in the public domain in 2002 MIGHT have changed something. Who knows, it might have even cost Georgie Boy his second term.

Would you risk your career, or even END it, knowing that doing so might save lives, or keep people from being tortured?

I guess not.

MMMM the coffee smells good! Too bad I don't drink it. I don't drink Kool-Aid either, but that's just me.

[Buzz Clik]

12. No shit! You don't care anything about her, her leadership, her accomplishments.

Your only consideration is what ever emotion is driving your engine this second.

Pelosi has given the Democrats an incredible opportunity for leadership, yet many Democrats are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Republicans and Rush Limbaugh stoning her over rumors.

[GreenArrow]

21. "Pelosi has given the Dems an incredible opportunity

for leadership" and has squandered it at almost every turn. IMO, she's useless, gutless, unimaginative, and thoroughly co-opted.

[Fovea]

6. Profiles in Courage.

Or not. Bushco is corrupt, yes. But because we did not fight them, here we are sitting in a pile of manure taller than our heads with a flag sticking out of it.

The current Wide Stance Party attack machine succeeds only because it attacks with impunity.

Nancy as a leader, should have been whipping up holy hell, not making nice.

[shraby]

8. It's easy for all of you to write about courage and

all that, but how many of you would be able to withstand the onslaught that is going on right now? Be honest. Particularly if it would have been useless. Bushco got caught on torture AND wiretapping..did he get in trouble with the public for it? Seems to me the media covered his ass pretty good and all the public heard (as now) is how terrible Pelosi is and NOT how terrible Cheney/Bush/Republicans are. Except for Olbermann and Rachel, the drumbeat against THEM is pretty quiet, although we were treated to Gingrich, Bond and Boener in spades calling foul on Nancy.

[jgraz]

18. "how many of you would be able to withstand the onslaught" Are you serious?

To which "onslaught" are you referring? You know that Pelosi isn't *actually* dodging bullets, don't you?

There are US troops overseas right now sacrificing their lives for what they believe in. And you think it's too courageous for Pelosi to stand up for what's right when she's running in an 80% Democratic district?

W T F?

[Gidney N Cloyd]

7. God forbid she put the country ahead of her career and reputation.

[TaxCollector]

9. The knives are out for her

Methinks that she is out on a limb and the administration has sent Panetta up the tree with a saw.

[tnlefty]

23. Welcome to DU TaxCollector!

I've had the same thought and I'm hoping we're both wrong. :hi:

[Buzz Clik]

11. Pelosi has been a target at DU ever since she became Speaker.

The various splinter factions have hated her for not impeaching, not enacting health care reform, or not supporting whatever bit of legislation these people wanted at that moment. Cindy Sheehan ran in the primaries against Pelosi, which actually flushed some of the loudest and more insane voices away from DU for a brief while. Democrats protested outside Pelosi's home. They still hate her now for whatever knowledge she might have had about torture.

Pelosi took the leadership role in the House for the first time in many years -- first ever woman. And the wonderful and crucial achievement was celebrated for about an hour.

Sound familiar?

[EFerrari]

13. You're trivializing a moment that was extremely difficult for a lot of people.

And it took a lot longer than an hour to go from "wonderful achievement" to protests.

[Buzz Clik]

14. It may have been less than an hour. She announced that impeachment was off the table quite early.

If stating the absolute truth is trivializing, I'm sorry. But I'm in no mood to soft-stroke a marauding band of hysterical people who haven't had a sentient thought about Pelosi in two-and-a-half years.

[EFerrari]

15. I wrote a series of essays at the time that chronicle very precisely

the progress of some of Nancy's supporters here on DU and here in the district. It was a painful time, especially for some of us who celebrated the first woman speaker. Oh, well, life is life.

You know, if I had the burden of being the arbiter of absolute truth, I'd be in a crappy mood, too.

lol

[Enrique]

16. people did speak up and it didn't stop anything

Jane Harman we know, John Rockefeller regarding the wiretapping, and now I just heard Sen. Wyden say he and others sent protest letters and requested the CIA declassify those letters now.

[TexasObserver]

17. Even without this issue, she's been a very ineffective speaker.

She's been weak to the point of being cowardly. She had a majority in 2007 and 2008, and was pathetic as a speaker. I really don't understand how anyone can defend her on her job as speaker.

Forget her role in the torture issues. She's just a bad speaker and has never been up to the job.

[walldude]

19. So what? we aren't talking about hands in the cookie jar here

we are talking about torture. She put her "career and reputation" in front of her humanity... If it were me and the people I were working with/for were torturing people I'd have quit my fucking job, as any decent human being would have done. This all depends on if she knew... the jury is still out on that one..


I'll just keep saying this over and over. Prison for the guilty and unemployment for the quiet and complicit.

[Orsino]

22. That would have been awful.

The Democratic Party might have been forced to look for "leadership" that wasn't complicit in the BushCo crimes. Where would that have left us?