Pelosi's Stubbornness Turns CIA Smoke Into PR Fire

(NEWSER) - CIA director Leon Panetta today denied Nancy Pelosi’s claim that the agency misled lawmakers in a 2002 briefing, the Hill reports. In a memo to employees, Panetta said “CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing ‘the enhanced techniques that had been employed.’” Moreover, “we are an agency of high integrity,” he said. “Our task is to tell it like it is.” More»

She doesn't seem to be on the same page as Reid

(NEWSER) - It was a little thing. After Tuesday’s powwow with the president on Afghan strategy, Harry Reid emerged from the White House with Nancy Pelosi and announced: “Everyone said that ‘whatever decision you make, we will support it,’” as the House speaker rolled her eyes. Though she maintains she's "not upset," it's clear that the question of whether to send more troops to Afghanistan is a decisive issue among Democrats, notes Politico. More»

Kristol: Why else would CIA boss 'humiliate' his party's speaker?

(NEWSER) - After Nancy Pelosi suggested the CIA had misled Congress, the agency’s director fired back with a letter denying the claim. But the idea that Leon Panetta would send a letter “humiliating a House speaker of his own party” entirely of his own accord seems “almost inconceivable,” writes William Kristol in the Washington Post. Perhaps he “ran it by” Rahm Emanuel—begging the question: “Does Emanuel (and, presumably, President Obama) want a chastened Pelosi to remain speaker?” More»

(NEWSER) - AG Eric Holder today named a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture against CIA operatives who interrogated terror suspects during the Bush administration, the Washington Post reports. John Durham, who is currently probing the destruction of interrogation tapes, will look into fewer than 12 cases detailed in a CIA report released today and determine if a full-scale investigation is warranted. The Bush-era Justice Department investigated and dismissed the cases. More»

(NEWSER) - Newt Gingrich is back, and he’s here to stay. “It’s Gingrich time,” Paul Waldman writes for the American Prospect. That’s not a good thing, for the Republicans or the country. “This is Newt's time again not only because there's a leadership vacuum in the GOP but because the Republicans are back in opposition, and nobody opposes quite like Newt,” Waldman writes. “He is a master of the contemptuous sneer.” More»