Saturday's editorial in the Washington Post raises several issues that go beyond the accuracy of Nancy Pelosi's recollections and the accuracy of CIA versions of their secret Congressional testimony: what was she supposed to do if she really questioned the behavior of a Commander in Chief during wartime and how much detail constitutes accurate oversight, especially by minority members of Congressional committees?
There seems to be a lot of 'tail wagging the dog' talk here. What is the tail supposed to do when feces come down the line besides get out of the way?
One has to do with the functioning of the intelligence oversight system and reforms that may be needed. Are leaders of the intelligence committees being appropriately informed? Should information be shared more broadly? Given the constraints of classified information and pledges of secrecy, is there an adequate mechanism for lawmakers to express opposition or concern?
Second, at a time when many are calling for prosecutions or other forms of accountability, it's important to understand how wide a circle understood and did or did not endorse the methods being used. As Philip D. Zelikow, former counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, testified last week at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Justice Department's torture memos, "the U.S. government over the past seven years adopted an unprecedented program in American history of cruelly calculated, dehumanizing abuse and physical torment to extract information. This was a mistake, perhaps a disastrous one. It was a collective failure in which a number of officials and members of Congress and staffers of both parties played a part . . . Precisely because this was a collective failure it is all the more important to comprehend it and learn from it."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/15/AR2009051502387.html 
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