Thanks, Nancy.  Thanks for making the torture debate about you.

By the way?  Your shrieking denials might not be as heinous as waterboarding, but it’s pretty damn near close.

WASHINGTON — CIA Director Leon Panetta says agency records show CIA officers briefed lawmakers truthfully in 2002 on methods of interrogating terrorism suspects, but it is up to Congress to reach its own conclusions about what happened.

Panetta’s message to agency employees came one day after Speaker Nancy Pelosi said bluntly the CIA had misled her and other lawmakers about the use of waterboarding and other harsh techniques seven years ago.

Panetta wrote that the political debates about interrogation “reached a new decibel level” with the charges.

He urged agency employees to “ignore the noise and stay focused on your mission.”

So, look.  I’m sure there are degrees of truthiness here but it’s time for independent counsel.  Some sort of an investigation.  Maybe this guy:

If the government can do that to investigate President Clinton’s use of an intern as a human ash tray, this certainly qualifies.

If Pelosi knew this was going on, then her current indignation rings hollow.  If she was lied to, then somebody deserves to have their butts handed to them.  But this back and forth game of she-said, Cheney-said is ridiculous and distracts from substance.

Pelosi is either telling the truth, easily duped, or a liar.  And it’s time to find out which.

And if in opening the books to find out if she’s being duplicitous, this whole gross thing comes to light, then I have to problem with her career being tossed on the bonfire.  

It’s put up or shut up time.

I’ll take either.  But this crap is making miss the Octo-Mom.