Ambrose: Pelosi in handcuffs?

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Democrat Nancy Pelosi wants a truth commission to investigate possible U.S. facilitators of torture and criminal prosecutions if it comes to that, and here is what I wonder -- does she also want poetic justice?
Surely not, because that could entail making the dreams of some Internet bloggers come true. The commission would subject her to some tough interrogation -- no waterboarding, of course -- and ultimately she'd be investigated, tried in court, put in handcuffs and led off to the clinker as a felon.
No ironic punishment of that kind will or should come the way of this speaker of the House of Representatives, although her reputation is already undergoing punishment for mendacious hypocrisy so obvious that it cannot be missed by anyone of sound mind.
The story is this. Back in 2002, the CIA conducted multiple briefings with top members of both parties on House and Senate intelligence committees. The subject was interrogation techniques approved by the Justice Department. Pelosi was present and raised no objections, but now claims she had no idea the techniques would be or had been employed and that, at any rate, she was bound to keep her mouth shut.
Also present was Peter Goss, then a Republican representative and later CIA director. He says the group was told the techniques were being employed, gave its support to the CIA and afforded it the funding it needed for its operations. Anyone who didn't approve of the techniques could have spoken up or lodged complaints with the committee chairmen, House leaders, the CIA director or the White House, he has written.
Even if you decide you don't believe or agree with Goss, can anyone there possibly have thought the CIA was having these discussions as a kind of academic undertaking with no real-life consequences? To think Pelosi was telling the truth, you'd have to conclude something pretty much like that.
The larger point here is not to underline the incompetence and prevarications of Pelosi, but to note that the whole truth commission idea is less about truth than about a partisan or at least ideological witch hunt aimed at ruining the lives of anyone who attempted in currently disapproved ways to protect the nation from terrorists.
A chief proponent of the commission, Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, denies, of course, that the panel is needed for purposes of vengeance, but to take a hard look at "what happens when we lose our national honor."
In other words, he has prejudged what the truth commission will find: a loss of national honor. There are three facts he will obviously never, ever face.
One is that released memos show the interrogation techniques, while undeniably tough, were fashioned to avoid serious harm and fall short of the legal definition of torture. The second is that the Justice Department rulings on these procedures have a similar kind of legal standing as those of the Supreme Court and that the executive branch did consult members of Congress. The third fact is that the techniques saved lives.
It is easy to be blinded to these facts -- the exaggerations and misinformation of the moment are coming at us like an avalanche -- but it is important to understand that what we are now doing to ourselves could have implications for our future safety. The message is now being sent to officialdom that we should do no more than play patty-cake the next time we have a terrorist around with knowledge of murderous schemes.
We should also understand that one witch hunt can breed another. If all should unfold the way Pelosi and Leahy want, figure on a second round of vindictiveness the next time we have a transition of power from one party to the other.

(Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado. He can be reached at SpeaktoJay(at)aol.com.)

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