Dowd Demonizes Dick -- Again

Maureen Dowd hates Dick Cheney.

In her column today, "Cheney, Master of Pain," Dowd writes:

Dick Cheney has done many dastardly things. But presiding over policies so saturnine that they ended up putting the liberal speaker from San Francisco on the hot seat about torture may be one of his proudest achievements.

Nancy Pelosi’s bad week of blithering responses about why she did nothing after being briefed on torture has given Republicans one of their happiest — and harpy-est — weeks in a long time. They relished casting Pelosi as contemptible for not fighting harder to stop their contemptible depredations against the Constitution. That’s Cheneyesque chutzpah.

The stylish grandmother acted like a stammering child caught red-handed, refusing to admit any fault and pointing the finger at a convenient scapegoat. She charged the C.I.A. with misleading Congress, which is sort of like saying the butler did it, or accusing a generic thuggish-looking guy in a knit cap with gang tattoos to distract from your sin.

Although the briefing was classified, she could have slugged it out privately with Bush officials. But she was busy trying to be the first woman to lead a major party. And very few watchdogs — in the Democratic Party or the press — were pushing back against the Bush horde in 2002 and 2003, when magazines were gushing about W. and Cheney as conquering heroes.

Leon Panetta, the new C.I.A. chief, who is Pelosi’s friend and former Democratic House colleague from California, slapped her on Friday, saying that the agency briefers were truthful. And Jon Stewart ribbed that the glossily groomed speaker was just another “Miss California U.S.A. who’s also been revealing a little too much of herself.”

It’s discomfiting to think that the woman who’s making Joe Biden seem suave is second in line to the presidency.

Of course, a lot of the hoo-ha around Pelosi makes it sound as if she knew stuff that no one else had any inkling of, when in fact the entire world had a pretty good idea of what was happening. The Bushies plied their dark arts in broad daylight.

Besides, the question of what Pelosi knew or didn’t, or when she did or didn’t know, is irrelevant to how W. and Cheney broke the law and authorized torture.

That's right.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney broke the law and authorized torture. These two guys "plied their dark arts in broad daylight." In Dowd's world, they're the ultimate evildoers!

Dowd's suggestion that "what Pelosi knew or didn’t, or when she did or didn’t know, is irrelevant" is ridiculous.

That's not the way our system works. There are checks and balances.

It was Pelosi's responsibility to serve in that capacity, along with others.

It most definitely does matter what Pelosi knew and when.

I do agree with Dowd on this: We should have a full accounting.

Bring it on.