News-Record.com

This Nancy Pelosi flap seems easy enough to figure out.

Just my speculation, of course, but here goes:

Pelosi knew, generally, in 2002 or 2003 that the CIA was roughing up al-Qaida detainees, and she didn't object.

No one did.

That was soon enough after 9/11 that leaders in Washington, of both parties, were still afraid of further terrorist attacks on the United States.

They remembered very well the horror of the strikes on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Arlington.

They knew, from information extracted from Abu Zubaydah, ironically, that if it weren't for the martyred heroes of Flight 93, a fourth hijacked jetliner would have crashed into the heart of Washington, likely destroying the White House.

They were still worried al-Qaida would get another chance.

And they were still pissed off.

So they were OK with U.S. intelligence services doing whatever was necessary to prevent it.

And they weren't terribly anxious to be told the details of whatever was necessary.

Which gives Pelosi a scrap of plausibility when she says now she didn't know Zubaydah was being waterboarded, or that the CIA "misled" her about its techniques. She knew, more or less, what was happening but didn't want to be told explicitly. For a politician, it's always better not to know.

Of course, everything is different now. Two things have changed: attitudes and politics.

It's been almost eight years since the 9/11 attacks and people aren't so afraid or angry anymore. Some think we're safe (not caring about what might have contributed to our greater sense of security). They believe we now can afford to be the kinder, gentler nation we were in the years before 9/11 (forgetting that al-Qaida found that America to be a soft, easy target).

And, of course, the political tables turned on the former administration. The Bush-Cheney White House screwed up in 2003 by shifting the focus from 9/11 to Iraq (and ineptly trying to link the two). Just about everything went wrong from that point (except preventing further terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, although more Americans ended up being killed in Iraq). Bush-Cheney and Republicans in general were reviled by Democrats and rejected by voters. It became politically popular to attack them and all their policies, including harsh interrogation techniques.

Pelosi and other Democrats can't admit now that they averted their eyes to those practices when they thought they were necessary for national security. The attitude today is that they never were necessary for national security.

Let's be clear: Pelosi wasn't in charge of anything in 2003. She's not responsible for any actions or policies of the former administration. She could have objected, loudly, to them, but the fact that she didn't only convicts her of hypocrisy, not being an "accomplice to torture," as Karl Rove gleefully wrote in the WSJ.

What's more important, now that Pelosi holds one of the country's most powerful leadership positions, are the policies she enacts and supports today. Will they protect our nation's security, or will they open doors to further attacks? Let's hope there's no need to condemn her for truly grievous failures in the future.