Pelosi Was Cool With Waterboarding...

I think reasonable people can argue whether waterboarding is torture. It creates pain and unpleasantness, and the Wikipedia article is worth reading, but even more so the discussion. All in all it's not something I would like us doing, but if the alternative were if lives were at stake in another 9/11 style attack as Dick Cheney asserts, and all other options were fruitless, I personally would sign the go-ahead, and so I won't second guess the decision then.

But since it is admittedly close to the line, it shouldn't be done without approvals all the way up and down the line on both sides. And that's apparently exactly what was done. As Hoekstra writes in a WSJ editorial:

It was not necessary to release details of the enhanced interrogation techniques, because members of Congress from both parties have been fully aware of them since the program began in 2002. We believed it was something that had to be done in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to keep our nation safe. After many long and contentious debates, Congress repeatedly approved and funded this program on a bipartisan basis in both Republican and Democratic Congresses.

I'm going to be very interested if she continues to double down on her being in the dark statement, or she modifies it in some way. It seems like the type of thing that would be very easy to prove one way or the other and Hoekstra acts like he has the goods.

And if he's right, Pelosi's statement is either partisan hackery that we can dutifully ignore, or she was incompetent then. I pick the former, but madam speaker can pick her own poison.