Pelosi Engulfed by Her Own Game of Political Retribution

The tortured debate on enhanced interrogations is getting more tortured by the day.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has now elevated the left's power-hungry hypocrisy to the center of partisan politics. Today's lead editorial at the Wall Street Journal perfectly captures the moment and implications of Pelosi's pursuit of political retribution:

Given House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's acknowledged skill at torturing the Bush Administration in recent years, it no doubt afforded her critics some pleasure yesterday to watch her twist in the wind in front of the press over what she knew and when about the CIA's terrorist interrogations. With mockery even from Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, Mrs. Pelosi has turned herself into a spectacle about a subject that she and fellow Democrats had themselves reduced to a spectacle of demagogic accusation and blame, repeatedly threatening to put Bush officials in the dock for "condoning torture ..."

Whatever one's politics may be, there has to be some recognition that Washington -- the U.S. government -- simply can't function if it is endlessly entangled in the exquisitely argued, one might say absurd, blame-games that she and some Democrats are running against former Bush officials, and that now threaten the political standing of the Speaker herself.

Barack Obama won the election and as President he now has a government to run. With that responsibility comes the necessity to make difficult decisions, as those he has made on prisoner photos and military tribunals attest. If he is to succeed, he needs a capital city of responsible partners, not a running circus with the Speaker of the House at the center, blaming everyone else as she flees from any responsibility for what she heard and did.

As I argued yesterday, Speaker Pelosi should step aside. President Obama should encourage her to do so. As John Hinderaker argued yesterday:

I don't suppose anyone imagines that the CIA was foolish enough to lie to Pelosi and others about the use of waterboarding. On the contrary, it seems obvious that everyone in the chain of command was covering himself or herself by disseminating information about the harsh interrogations of three al Qaeda leaders. Pelosi has now opened the lid on a box that she will not be able to close. The CIA has no choice but to defend itself by demonstrating that she, not the Agency, is lying. Possibly Leon Panetta can save her, but at the moment, it is hard to see how this affair can end with Pelosi remaining as Speaker of the House.

The spectacle has taken politics to a new level, even by the standards of today's polarization. It's utterly astounding to see nihilist leftists attacking folks like Charles Krauthammer with childish Photoshops. And incredibly, James Fallows, the premiere writer at the Atlantic, is arguing that former Senator Bob Graham has "shifted the debate" away from Pelosi's lies (main story on Graham, here).

Amazing ...