I had to travel to Baghdad to catch up with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but I managed to find her hiding in a small broom closet in an airplane hanger at Bagram Air Base.
You Found Me!
“Madam Speaker, um, why are you huddled in this closet?”
“Things have gotten a bit dicey back home about this whole ‘authorized torture’ issue. This is the only place I could find that wasn’t rife with reporters asking a lot of hard questions. How did you find me?”
“I called former Vice-President Cheney. He knows a lot about undisclosed locations and suggested I look here.”
“That bastard.”
“Madam Speaker, what I wanted to talk to you about…it seems, despite your numerous denials and repeatedly changing your story about what happened, that you were, in fact, briefed on many occasions about the use of torture on suspected terrorists over the course of the last seven years. Do you care to comment?”
“I don’t see what the big deal is. I’m sure there were briefings at some time over the past few years but that doesn’t mean that I was paying attention to what the briefers were saying.”
“Madam Speaker?”
“Look. Everyone knows that we rush legislation through without bothering to read it. It happens all the time. It sure makes it easier to get things done when you’re trying to corral 435 House members. The less they know about what they’re voting on, the better. I was proud that we got a Budget Reconciliation Act, over a thousand pages long, obligating trillions of taxpayer dollars, on the floor of the House for a vote with less than twelve hours to read it before the vote. Let me tell you something, that is effective leadership. I’m quite proud of what I’ve been able to do as Speaker.”
“Yes, ma’am. I remember how upset everyone was. But what does that have to do with your current involvement in the torture issue?”
“If we can railroad legislation through the House that no one ever reads, legislation that passed overwhelmingly, by the way, I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to believe that we sit through briefings without listening. For God’s sake, we all have Blackberrys and spend most of our time checking Google News to see what the media is saying about us.”
“So, at first you said you were never briefed. Then you said that you were briefed but that the information only related to ‘possible’ torture in the ‘future.’ Next, you said that you were told the techniques were ‘lawful.’ And now you’re saying that you were briefed about the then-current and on-going torture of terrorist suspects but that you weren’t ‘paying attention’? You were the Ranking Member on the House Intelligence Committee and you weren’t actually listening?”
“I wish you wouldn’t keep using the word torture. We like to say ‘Enhanced Interrogation Techniques’; we really prefer to say ‘EIT’ because only beltway insiders know what we’re talking about. It’s the same principle as calling bad bank loans ‘Legacy Assets’ instead of the old term, ‘Toxic Assets’. People find it much more comfortable and, frankly, angry email to my office is down over 30% since we changed the name.”
“So, your explanation is that you simply were not paying attention when you and other senior members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were briefed, on numerous occasions, about the torture, I’m sorry, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ that were used on prisoners?”
“Yes. That’s about it. Let me ask you, does that seem to make sense? I can’t hide out in Baghdad much longer. I had to arrange this trip on short notice, once it became clear that no one was buying my other explanations, and I’m running out of clean underwear.”
“I’m sorry, Madam Speaker, I could not possibly comment. Thank you for your time.”
“I’ll work on my story a little more on the way back to Washington. I may try to pretend I have a hearing problem. That should help. Oh, do me a favor and close the door behind you when you leave.”
