Does a Leftist’s Lies Matter? Pelosi-nocchio Says no Way!

-By Warner Todd Huston

There are classic lies. There’s “Mom, my invisible friend broke the window, not me.” Of course, we all have heard, “I didn’t see any cookies.” Then there’s that ever favorite, “No, officer, I didn’t know I was speeding.” And who can forget that time worn, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica.”

But these days the American left has puffed itself up as the keeper of truths, the sacred protectors of America’s soul. And, since we all know the fable of rocks and glass houses, we must then realize that all leftists imagine that they simply don’t violate truth. They are paragons of it, to be sure. Not a lie should cross our lips, they contend, for it if does the presence of that lie is enough to abrogate our very Americanness.

The truth, you see, is of acclaimed importance to the self-anointed high priests of truth on the left these days. And they have their Messiah as a shining example of that sitting today in the White House. He is the one we’ve been waiting for. The light. The truth. The way.

At least, this is their delusional self-assessment, anyway.

So, I am wondering about the following: does it matter that one of the left’s most exalted leaders is a blatant liar?

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has made of herself only one of two things over the “torture” issue, and neither of those things is good. She is either a liar, or an utterly disgraceful incompetent of no principles whatever.

As report after report is revealed of what and when the Speaker of the House knew about the so-called torture of prisoners held by the Bush administration, at least one fact is becoming crystal clear. She and other members of Congress did, indeed, know of what was going on when it was going on.

Paul Kane of the Washington Post is only the latest to show that Congress was made well aware of the treatment that Bush officials had directed to be carried out on terroist prisoners. In his May 9 report, Kane tells us that Michael Sheehy, Pelosi’s top aid, had attended a 2003 White House briefing where the waterboarding of al Qaeda suspects was discussed. Also in that meeting was the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee Representative, Jane Harmon (R, CA), who afterward sent a letter of protest to the Bush administration over the situation. Pelosi has admitted that she was aware of that letter.

Yet, all this time, as she has ginned up the country to attack President Bush over “harsh interrogations” and his supposed criminal “secrecy,” Pelosi has claimed she was never told that these techniques were in use.

One wonders how Pelosi can say with a straight face that she didn’t know anything about “torture” but at the same time was aware about Harmon’s letter protesting the same?

So, we are left with two possibilities here.

Scenario One:

Pelosi is incompetent. She has a habit of sending top aides to meetings from which she never bothers to inform herself of the outcome. Further, she does not pay much attention to the doings of her colleagues. In other words she is uninterested in her job or the duties of her office.

Scenario Two:

Pelosi is a liar. She knew everything and is only trying to obscure the fact that she knew all along of what the Bush administration was doing. She deemed it unimportant to worry over much about any “torture” until now. And now she is worried abut it only so that she can use it as a political device.

Either way, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a loathsome character. And yet… and yet the left is falling all over itself to stand behind her.

So, do lies by leftists matter? Or is it only the ends that matter?

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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston

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