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• Friday, May 8, 2009 08:23 AM

  Pelosi case study

  One related point: I'm truly amazed to watch the eruption of "controversy" today over the fact that Nancy Pelosi was briefed in 2002 on various aspects of the CIA's interrogation program, as though (a) this is some sort of new revelation and (b) it has any bearing on whether there should be investigations and prosecutions into Bush crimes.

  I want to point out that the main reason, if not the only reason, for this overwhelming media view is because the only lens through which they can see this issue - like every issue - is the Republican/Democrat or conservative/liberal lens. When one's entire point of reference for even issues of egregious lawbreaking goes no further than fixating obsessively over the identity of the people and parties to the "controversy" and the issue's putative effect on partisan politics, whether a leader of one party was informed of the crimes of the other takes on a meaning perversely greater than the evil of the underlying conduct itself.

  Our establishment media simply cannot get beyond this stultifyingly narrow framework. It is pathological. Additionally, this staunch avoidance of anything approaching a substantive assessment of the actual illegal conduct, in favor of a petty fixation on the partisan "helps or harms" game, helps only the "side" that has committed the crimes and wrongdoing. No wonder our discourse is so unbelievably misshapen.

  —DCLaw1 Read DCLaw1's other letters
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