In a move that was likely sincere but also a sure attempt to gain brownie points within his new party, recent Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter seized an opportunity Wednesday to defend embattled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. As reported on OK WASSUP! here yesterday, Speaker Pelosi has been under fire recently regarding a hyped controversy surrounding when she was told about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques (read: “waterboarding”) being used by the CIA.
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“The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to — I was about to say ‘candid’; that’s too mild — to honesty,” Specter, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in an address to the American Law Institute. “Director [Leon] Panetta says the agency does not make it a habit to misinform Congress. I believe that is true. It is not the policy of the Central Intelligence Agency to misinform Congress,” Specter said. “But that doesn’t mean that they’re all giving out the information.”`
Because of leaks that have come from Congress, Specter said he understands the agency’s hesitancy to disclose all its information. “The current controversy involving Speaker Pelosi and the CIA is very unfortunate, in my opinion, because it politicizes the issue and it takes away attention from…how does the Congress get accurate information from the CIA?” Specter went on to make note of the political posturing taking place around this issue, particularly for Republicans, saying: “For political gain, people are making headlines.”
