What Democratic leaders didn't want to admit about waterboarding

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk. Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding... 

Now we're beginning to understand the depth of bad judgment and coverup on the part of Democratic leaders in Congress.  According to the Washington Post, it was back in late summer of 2002, well before the Iraq invasion, that they and their Republican colleagues were given "a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk." 

That included waterboarding.  And the reaction?

On that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.  "The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

Who do we have to thank for this?

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Even if we believe that the "two lawmakers in the room" who thought the methods weren't harsh enough were the Republicans -- Porter Goss and Pat Roberts -- the role of the Democrats is not excusable.  At the very, very least, they have been lying to us with the same impunity and arrogance as  the White House. 

And the White House knows it and uses its leverage accordingly.

Glenn Greenwald is eloquent and angry.  Carpetbagger is surprisingly gentle.