I’ve had enough of the Republicans and their lapdog media yapping about Nancy Pelosi and what and when she was told about torture in 2002. These Republicans and media pals have memories shorter than a worm’s. It was Dennis Hastert (R) that was Speaker of the House in 2002 and he led the actions or better yet, led the inactions of Congress during the Bush/Cheney years. Nancy Pelosi was not in a position of power during the Republican dominated Congress. There was little that she could do at that time. It was the responsibility of Dennis Hastert to speak up against torture. Instead, Hastert and the Republicans in Congress along with their friends in the media turned their backs on the Constitution and the American people and did nothing.
Ultimately, however, the greatest horror of Hastert’s House was not confirmed by its specific failures to serve the American people who most needed a Congress to counter the malignant neglect of the Bush-Cheney administration. Rather, it was defined by the remaking of an essential legislative chamber as nothing more than an extension of the executive branch of the government. The damage to the Congress has been severe, as has been the damage to the Republic.
All this talk about Nancy Pelosi is a diversionary tactic by Republicans that are guilty of negligence.
Hastert’s House was a crude and unworkable place, where members who sought to uphold their oaths to “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic” were held up to ridicule and forced to hold hearings on issues involving the most extreme abuses of presidential authority — lying to the Congress and the American people about matters of war and peace — in basement rooms.
So what exactly did Dennis Hastert know about torture? When did he know it and why didn’t he do something about it? Nothing more than Republican lies. I’ve had enough of it.
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