RUSH: You want to hear a little bit of Nancy Pelosi flailing around today? By the way, Bill Sammon had the greatest take. Bill Sammon is the Washington bureau chief at Fox News, and after Pelosi
There’s a story in the New York Times today that is a result of Pelosi leaking. I think there’s a game going on behind the scenes, Pelosi saying, ‘Hey, boys, you want to hang me out to dry, look what I can do to you.’ I will, of course, explain all this as the program unfolds before your very eyes and ears. However, Bill Sammon’s take on this, after Pelosi spoke today, after her press conference, Bill Sammon said, (paraphrasing) ‘The irony of all of this is that the Democrats, particularly specifically the Speaker of the House, the Democrats that are now the ones on the heat, getting the heat, on defensive over torture.’ Somehow the Democrats, you put a bag of manure in front of them and they’ll step in it. And somehow they have taken what was a godsend for them, Bush was responsible for everything, and look who now is on defensive about torture, who knew about it and didn’t say anything about it to stop it, a Democrat, and the Speaker of the House, no less.
Now, this is why, ladies and gentlemen, I always encourage people never to give up, never to quit, because you never know what’s going to happen day to day in politics. Things can change on a dime, and aside from me, it’s very difficult to predict what is going to happen. I know liberals like every square inch of my glorious naked body, and they’re going to get tripped up by this stuff because this country is not a liberal country, and the truth does not require a majority to win out. Never forget that. This may be a profundity of mine that you will remember for the rest of your life. The truth does not require a majority to prevail. The truth is its own power. The truth will out. That’s the reason for the phrase, the truth will out. You just have to be patient. Sometimes you can’t force it. Sometimes people on your own side are dunderheads and they’re not willing to move the ball along as eagerly as you would like them to. But the truth will out. The truth does not require a majority to prevail.
Now, here’s Pelosi. After the press conference, and, by the way, she forgot herself during this thing. She had to consult her written statement, she was nervous, those eyes are blinking left and right. She gets a lot of exercise when she blinks. Do you realize the muscle exertion required for Nancy Pelosi to blink? So if she works out daily she can skip it today because she had it during the press conference. After the press conference, a reporter said, ‘Regardless of the individual who told you that these techniques were being used, and regardless of the venue in which you learned of this fact, does not the foreknowledge of the use of these techniques make you complicit in their use?’
PELOSI: No. This is a policy that has been — was conceived and implemented by the Bush administration, that they notified Congress that they had legal opinions, saying that this was legal, but they would let us know if they were planning to use them, is what they briefed us on. It does not make me complicit, no.
RUSH: This is a Drive-By Media question. A whole lot of Republican media don’t exist, number one, and two, they didn’t get into this thing. If you would have heard the question, it was a New Castrati guy, (impersonating New Castrati) ‘Does not this make you complicit in the use of these techniques, Mrs. Speaker?’ ‘No, no, it doesn’t, it doesn’t.’ Two things, there were two briefings, a September 2nd briefing where the CIA said that they were going to use enhanced interrogation techniques. Then there was a second briefing five months later. At the second briefing Pelosi is not the Speaker, she is the chairman of the intel committee, and she didn’t go, she didn’t go. She said she was not briefed in the second meeting. She was told what happened in the second meeting, by Jane Harman, and when Jane Harman wrote a letter objecting to all this, Pelosi said, (paraphrasing) ‘Well, I didn’t have to do anything, Jane Harman,’ she’s the chairman of the committee, ‘I didn’t have to do anything, Jane Harman took care of it. Besides, I was fighting a war in Iraq at the time.’ Now, my trusted and loyal audience, what the hell does that mean? Does it mean when she was fighting a war in Iraq, does it mean she was opposing the war in Iraq, or that she was engaged in the war in Iraq with the administration trying to prevail over Saddam Hussein? That’s open to interpretation. Here’s the next question and answer. Unidentified reporter says, ‘But Mr. Sheehy, you say he did tell you and your staff did tell you.’
RUSH: Stop the tape here. Now, recue this. This is something that I know as a highly trained broadcast specialist, renowned public speaker, if it’s in your heart, you don’t need a statement. If it’s in your heart and if you’re telling the truth, you don’t need to find your statement, you don’t need to read anything. The reason you have a statement and the reason you read it is because you’ve gotta be precise because you’re on the edges. You’re on the edges. Somebody telling you the truth, somebody telling you what they really believe, they don’t need to write it down, don’t need a speech. So here it is again, ‘But Mr. Sheehy, you say he did tell you, your staff did tell you.’
PELOSI: So, my statement is clear, and let me read it again, let me read it again. I’m sorry, I have to find the page. I was informed that Department of Justice opinions had concluded that the use of enhanced interrogations was legal. The only mention of waterboarding was that the briefing — in the briefing was that it was not being employed when my staff person — (shuffling pages) I’m sorry, I had the pages out of order. (shuffling pages) Five months later, my staff person told me that there had been a briefing, informed me that there had been a briefing and that a letter had been sent. I was not briefed on what was in that briefing; I was just informed that the briefing had taken place.
RUSH: That’s just hard to believe. She’s chairman of the intel committee at the time. This is the second briefing. The first was September ’02. The second was five months later. And Jane Harman went in there, she’s chairman of the committee, and all they told her, (paraphrasing) ‘Hey, by the way, we had a meeting with the CIA, okay, don’t worry, don’t bother me, I’m fighting a war in Iraq.’ Nobody told her what was in the meeting; nobody briefed her as to what was said? Uh, sorry. I think not even the libs are going to buy this, not even her buddies are going to buy this. Another unidentified reporter, ‘Madam Speaker, just to be clear, you’re accusing the CIA of lying to you in September of 2002?’
PELOSI: Misleading the Congress of the United States.
REPORTER: And also —
PELOSI: Misleading the Congress of the United States. Yes, I am saying that they are misleading — that the CIA was misleading the Congress. And at the same time, the administration was misleading the Congress on the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, to which I said this intelligence does not support the imminent threat, to which the press asked the same question you just did now, ‘Are you accusing them of lying?’ I said, ‘I’m just stating a fact.’
RUSH: All right, so here she’s trying to skate by on this by saying, hey, the CIA, everybody knows they misled us on weapons of mass destruction. She’s just trying to couple that with the fact that she was misled on waterboarding. But this is the one where the fireworks are going to begin. George Tenet is out there somewhere. Don’t forget, George Tenet is out there. He got a medal. They gave him a medal when he retired. He’s out there somewhere. Porter Goss is out there somewhere. All these CIA people and the people inside, they’re out there, and the Speaker of the House has just said directly that they lied to her. Ha, folks, hee-hee-hee. What is this, the 14th of May? By tonight, maybe tomorrow, it’s going to be Fourth of July fireworks time all over the Drive-By news cycle. One more before we go to the break. She’s splitting hairs here on not being briefed, but being informed. But then in the next sentence you’ll hear her say she wasn’t informed after saying she was informed, not briefed. Question: ‘In that press conference, we were all fairly trying to get at the broader question of whether you knew about waterboarding at all. And the idea that we got from you was that you were never told that waterboarding was being used, but now we know that later in February you were told. It wasn’t in that briefing, but you were told. You were adamant that you didn’t know waterboarding was being used, but you were told.’
PELOSI: The point is is that I wasn’t briefed, I was told — informed that someone else had been briefed about it. I’m only speaking from my — I don’t have to stand (unintelligible) this. I’m only speaking from my own experience, and we were told that it was not being used. Subsequently, the other members of the committee were informed.
REPORTER: And so were you.
PELOSI: No, I wasn’t informed. I was informed that a — a briefing had taken place. Now, you have to look at what they briefed those members. I was not briefed that. I was only informed that they were briefed, but I did not get the briefing.
RUSH: Okay, so she was informed before she wasn’t informed, after everybody else was briefed. Remember all these past occasions where we’ve played audio sound bites from the Speaker of the House and with great compassion we have asked, ‘Is this woman bright or is this pure political calculation?’ Nancy Pelosi is so clumsy at this. Liberals lie, by definition liberalism has to obscure what it really believes. Obama and Bill Clinton make this look easy. It’s like I’ve always asked you people, don’t try what I do at home. The great make it look easy. Pelosi thinks that she can pull off Obama and Clinton, but it’s obvious that she can’t. It’s a real talent to be able to lie. It’s a real talent to be able to throw blame elsewhere and have people love you and believe you. This just didn’t work today. It didn’t work for the Speaker of the House.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
ROVE: Are these Democrats now willing to say, you know, Nancy Pelosi knew about these techniques, she was complicit in them, she remained silent, she in fact encouraged their use, are they now willing to say she was an accomplice and has to be investigated and prosecuted? If not, then we can all conclude that this is nothing but political showmanship and an attempt to smear the previous administration. If they can’t be consistent with Nancy Pelosi’s lies then we can dismiss them as being serious questions.
RUSH: And that is an excellent point. If we’re going to go after and try to destroy Bush and Cheney on this whole torture business, and Pelosi knew about it and didn’t say anything and didn’t stop it, and they don’t go after Pelosi, then they’re finished. Dick Cheney gets results. To the phones we go. We’re going to start where? San Francisco. This is Dave. You’re up first. It’s great to have you here. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I appreciate you taking the call first and, like I told Snerdley, there are still a few of us left out here in the western leftist coast. But my comment is pretty straightforward. I want to draw a parallel between Nancy Pelosi basically saying I didn’t get the briefing. I can’t believe that some staffer then didn’t take a recorded, you know, written down — they gotta have a report on these briefings. She should have read that. And the parallel is they’re saying they passed the stimulus bill, but they never did. They didn’t read that. And now she’s saying I did this other thing, and I agreed to all this and let it go by my desk —
RUSH: Well, the stimulus bill, she wrote that, so she didn’t need to read it.
CALLER: That’s so true, exactly my point. It is a bold-faced lie or she did in fact read it.
RUSH: Well, nobody’s believing that she did not know what was briefed. Jane Harman sent a letter. Now, Jane Harman and Pelosi don’t get along, and they haven’t for a long time. It’s Queen Bee Syndrome. It’s the Queen Bee Syndrome. And, by the way, I want to warn all of you, lurking in the background invisible in all of this is Mrs. Clinton. Keep in mind Mrs. Clinton is there and Pelosi may be in the process of self-destructing, and Obama, who knows in four years what his fate is going to be. Pelosi whacked Harman. She was supposed to chair the intel committee and Harman didn’t get it, Queen Bee Syndrome. But you’re right, common sense. She’s the chairman of the committee. She is a control freak. She knows everything going on in her committee and in her caucus. And on this one instance, well, there was a briefing but I wasn’t told, I didn’t know, I was busy, I was fighting the Iraq war at the time. But don’t confuse it with the stimulus, because she wrote that, she knows every syllable in the stimulus.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Nancy Pelosi fighting for her career today in Washington. She is being waterboarded, finding out what it’s like. Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Dave, thanks for calling and thanks for waiting. Welcome to the program.
RUSH: Well, the records will get released. CIA will take care of that.
CALLER: Okay. But I just got a feeling —
RUSH: You’ll read about it in the newspaper. You’ll see about it on Chris Matthews at night. You’ll see it on MSNBC or in the New York Times, Washington Post. The records will get released one way or the other. Maybe not officially, but they will.
CALLER: Okay. Okay. Then she should have nothing to worry about then, should she?
RUSH: She has everything in the world to worry about. That’s why the records are gonna get released. If she’s telling the truth, the records… Again, she’s fighting for her career. That’s what this is about. She knows full well that she’s fighting for her career, and so she’s going, ‘Okay, boys. It’s big time here. You want to come after me? Fine. Go ahead,’ and she’s out there saying, ‘They lied. CIA misled Congress, misled me, just like Bush misled me! Bush misled me on weapons of mass destruction. Bush misled all of us.’ Remember that line? Well, they got all the congressional briefings on weapons of mass destruction, too. Bush didn’t get anything more than they got, especially the select committees on intelligence in the House and the Senate.