Let’s not be exceedingly fooled by talks of compassion at any societal levels: ours remains mostly a dog eat dog world, and many of the top winners of such a senseless survival contest appear determined to make it ever more unforgiving for the losers.

To the iron-willed conqueror, the weak is a burden…to those who espouse social Darwinism, and they are the majority at the very top, the weak is meant to be exploited, abused, and eradicated whenever deemed necessary and with nature’s blessing, since according to Darwin’s fantasies, the survival of the fittest is nature’s plan … It is incidentally extremely ironic that a culture would be so seemingly eager to submit to an imaginary natural law when in every other respect displaying contempt for nature, and being so antagonistic and hostile to nature as to strive to overcome it and make it obsolete.

Who is weak, and who is the fittest? In business as in life, generosity, trust, innocence, vulnerability, sensitivity, openness, compassion, respect, a spirit of cooperation and sharing and even having a conscience can be somewhat detrimental to wealth accumulation and preservation.

The successful top business model is predatory, more often than not ruthless, exploitative of the ignorance, misfortune, or weaknesses of others … at the highest levels the aim is no longer to compete but to eliminate the competition, as in an all out war.

Big business is indeed war, just as war has always been big business, the collateral damage being the majority of the world population. The fittest is then the successful predator, and the poor, the working class and increasingly the middle class, are its prey.

While most small businesses offer real, valuable, honest services and products, many large businesses and multinational corporations simply feed on the public the way a wood tick feeds on a mammal, or government feeds on the taxpayer. The problem with the law of the jungle, however, is not so much that so few get to exploit so many, this sickness has always been part of the civilized world ever since the Roman Empire, but that the acquisition of wealth and power for their own sake leads to the development of philistine cultures, where the focuses in living are no longer meaning and quality but survival and quantity.

Mostly gone are, for example, reasonable interests in art, poetry, literature, philosophy, unless the popular trash that passes for such leads to marketable formulas and significant corporate profits. The barbarians are no longer at the gate, they are in the temple, and are in a position to dictate, with an implacable logic that is exclusively grounded in the harsh principles of money making, the terms of the world enduring slavery, which is that of barely existing under the burden of society’s ever more oppressive commercialism.

The habit of an obsessive pursuit of money for its own sake appeals to people whose uneducated motivations cause them to be oblivious and impermeable to any kind of refinement, sophistication or higher aspirations, to display a hatred of even the slightest traces of intellectualism, to distrust imaginative, independent, creative, free-thinking individuals, to favor conformity, uniformity, blind group loyalty as in nationalism, and to delight and perhaps even take pride in idiocy, as long as it is group idiocy, as can be seen in the media and mass trends.

Let’s compare objects created in previous centuries, to today’s mass-produced junk: most old objects, antiques, bear the mark of their human makers, a rare and beautiful quality of heart and soul involvement and individuality. Today’s objects only bear the mark of speedy profitability, they are vacant of all humanity, as are becoming our lives: plastic, rushed, impersonal, increasingly insensitive and hollow, and ruled by the crass corporate model of profit at all costs, by the ideas that what is not profitable is irrelevant and what impedes profits is the enemy of human society.

In this regard, the true artist, the true poet, whose main motivations are anything but money, are suspiciously regarded as being almost seditious, adversarial to the norm, while the norm, first defined by the productivity of the assembly line, now causes workers and professionals to compete with an increasingly faster electronic standard of productivity, natural time being perceived to be a great obstacle to monetary gain, which is to say that our very own humanity is currently defined to be an obstruction to profit.

What kind of world is this, then? A world that, for those who reject the social conditioning that encourages relentless competition, the manic pursuit of material rewards and a drive to achieve recognition within the boundaries of limited social frameworks, makes no more sense than a treadmill would make sense to someone who would rather run free in the wild open prairie.

To make sense of a world that keeps people down, immobilized, functioning like robots and barely living, and whose only practical freedom is financial freedom, without which life remains, under any form of government, slavery, one has to become a willing and obedient hostage of conditioning indeed, and follow the vastly unintelligent social script as closely as a prisoner follows incarceration rules.

The prison, the evil here is not money itself, but the utter fantasy that high artificial living standards create happiness and fulfillment while more modest natural living standards cause misery…why then do the richest people on earth are plagued by so many mental illnesses such as depression, bi-polar disorder, etc? Not to romanticize poverty and demonize wealth, but a simpler, calmer, more natural, authentic and cooperative way of life is in my opinion far superior to the mania of pillaging the earth to manufacture ever more toxic products and substances that are ever faster consumed and discarded while entire populations are exploited in every possible manner or even killed to keep this madness going.

What is today called material poverty becomes psychologically unbearable only within an environment that is culturally bare, alienating, and devoid of authentic human fulfillment, a cultural, spiritual and psychological wasteland. Where and when populations have very close family units, meaningful social roles and connections, essential values and a propensity to fulfill real, natural human needs rather than artificial desires and fancy cravings, a humbler lifestyle is not perceived to be anymore humiliating or unfulfilling than not having a 3000 square foot house would have been perceived to be damaging to the self-worth or well-being of a 19th century Inuit, or than not growing up in Beverly Hills and not going to summer vacation in the Hampton is damaging to the average American child’s psyche.

It is time to initiate new social and cultural standards to restore a sense of inner self to the individual, to understand that frantic productivity and consumerism are not conditions fundamental to fulfillment, and a quasi imperial standard of living is not essential to human happiness, so that the earth is no longer trashed and the future generations sacrificed to elevate the low self-esteem and fill the inner void of the neurotic and the spiritually vacant.

Raphael Montoliu lives in Lakeport.

Our “mussel task force” has resulted in a lot of time from many volunteers to try and put a plan and actions together to combat this threat within the limitations of limited funds while trying to please everyone involved. Many have done the politically correct action to tell of the “excellent job” they are doing. I will be the bad guy and conclude they have accomplished little if anything tangible to stop the threat, while acknowledging they have made a great effort.

First of all I will repeat the threat, the economy of Lake County will be severely impacted by these mussels getting into our lake. The ecology of the lake will change forever. Those of us that are both emotionally and financially invested in the county will see property values plummet much farther than expected. Property taxes will be reduced.

A financially challenged county will become a financially ruined county as the tourist industry will all but go away. Lake water users including agriculture will see their costs soar. Someday hopefully an eradication treatment for mussels will be developed, today it does not exist. We can only hope to keep them out until the treatment is available and effective.

We have known of this threat for years; in 2005 the Board of Supervisors was alerted to the potential westward spread of the mussels. In early 2007 the Board of Supervisors was told the mussels had reached Southern California.

Initial (2005) reactions were that Lake County did not need to be saddled with another negative marketing image (i.e. algae, weeds and mussels) so keep it low key and then when the threat increased many (correctly) assumed the state should be the first responder.

Finally (2007) the Board of Supervisors initiated the mussel task force to ensure that we locally did everything possible to protect our lakes and economy when it was obvious the state was not stepping up to the task.

When one objectively looks at where we are today we find public awareness at a much greater level than it was two years ago when the local effort got started. But concrete actions that could stop the mussels from getting here or at least lower the probability significantly have been discussed at length but have not happened. I contend we are at risk as much today as we were two years ago.

A couple of examples: A friend went to a local resort (I will leave the name out) to get mussel stickers for an out-of-area visitor’s boat on Memorial Day. There was no attempt to determine where the boat was recently or what the risk level was (a key part of the local prevention plan), there was no discussion of the importance of the program, no focus on the affidavit the boat owner was asked to sign – no sense of urgency whatsoever. It was just a troublesome transaction, sign here and give us $10. and here are your stickers. Nothing gained to prevent mussels.

Most of the visiting boats today are either bass boats or wakeboard boats. The bass fishermen as a group are probably among the most knowledgeable and careful regarding the mussel threat, although they are also likely to have been in Lake Mead or other infested lakes.

The wakeboard boats frequently visit us from Southern California and many of them have ballast tanks that take on hundreds of gallons of water to make them heavier and enlarge wakes. Those ballast tanks always have some water in them and can contain live mussels or veligers for long periods of time. To this day we do not treat these ballast tanks when these boats go into Clear Lake and fill and dump their tanks (a small amount of Clorox would eliminate the risk). Therefore, after countless hours of effort and discussion, our lake remains unprotected.

What could be done to prevent or minimize the threat:

1. Close the lake to out of county boats. Most effective but not acceptable due to the impact on the economy. Other California lakes have done this until a protection or eradication plan is determined and proven effective.

2. Stop all boats on roadways accessing the county to force inspection and treatment of at-risk boats. If this could be implemented and funded it would be pretty effective. For many reasons it is not feasible nor affordable.

3. Stop all at-risk boats from entering the lake by controlling all launch ramps. We have close to 600 private and public lake access ramps, very difficult to impossible to implement and fund (Tahoe has a plan like this).

4. The highest risk to Northern California lakes (and the delta water system) is from boats coming from southern California and Arizona. Almost 100 percent of these boats will use one of three roadways to get here (I-5, 99 or 101), three state checkpoints properly implemented could considerably lower the risk to us. This has been discussed for at least two years but not yet implemented.

5. A sticker plan to ensure that every user of our lake has signed an affidavit stating that he or she acknowledges the risk and personally assumes the responsibility to ensure that they do not spread mussels into Lake County could be very effective and is affordable. Significant penalties defined for failure to sign the affidavit and display the sticker ($1,000?) and significant legal action to anyone proven to have exposed the lake to mussels (e.g. $10,000 and loss of boat or ?) is key. Such a program that was enforced and had publicity through boating periodicals would put users of Clear Lake on notice that if they come here they better ensure they manage the mussel risk. This is the basis of our current effort. Unfortunately, we haven’t publicized it, have no meaningful fines, nor have we enforced it. We also charge a price for the stickers that is insufficient to fund the effort needed to make it work. As implemented it has very low effectiveness, properly implemented it could be much more effective.

The purpose of this assessment is not to criticize nor complement the significant effort by many county workers and private citizens to protect the lake from these invaders. The purpose is to provide an overview of the results for the community. To date it would get a very poor rating for effectiveness.

To make the hard decisions to implement and enforce a program that puts the responsibility on the shoulders of the visiting boat owners takes strong leadership and follow-through with meaningful fines. We have had neither.

Until someone comes up with a better plan, we sorely need both.

Ed Calkins is a Kelseyville resident who serves on the Clear Lake Advisory Subcommittee.

At the moment, he seems to think that a combination of “Idiocracy,” “Soylent Green” and “Mad Max” (aka “Road Warrior”) are blueprints, not warnings.

Yep, ignorant kids, starving people, mass suicide and rule by mob certainly are prescriptions for a healthy society. (Before you get your leathers in a twist, let me emphasize that I have nothing against motorcycles or their riders. Some of my best friends, etc. Only incurable clumsiness keeps me from joining you.)

Arnie wouldn't be the first politician to confuse fact and fiction. Number 43 seemed to think that “Wag the Dog” and “Canadian Bacon” were how-to manuals on war as a distraction.

Maybe you agree with Arnie that what California's budget needs is a couple thousand park guards collecting unemployment, a few thousand nonviolent prisoners looking for jobs, several hundred tourist-dependent businesses paying less in taxes because they have fewer customers.

Traci Verardo-Torres, legislative advocate for the California State Parks Foundation, doesn't think so. In Saturday's Lake County News story on possible park closures, she mentioned the governor hasn't studied the economic fallout, which is what the foundation is now doing. They don't yet have all the numbers, but she said every dollar spent at a state park is known to have $2.35 worth of impact in the local economy.

Arnie says the proposal will save $143 million; the damage to the state's tourism and economy hasn't been calculated. “That's one of the things that the State Parks Foundation thinks is a real flaw for this proposal,” Verardo-Torres said.

Did no one ever explain to the political classes what satire or fiction are? That when Jonathan Swift wrote the essay “A Modest Proposal” he didn't really want the poverty-stricken Irish to eat their own babies? That when movies are not documentaries (and sometimes even when they are) somebody made it up?

Fiction, and especially science fiction, seem to confuse a great many people. Who can blame them in these days of “reality” TV shows with script writers? When “60 Minutes” airs the same story twice in five months promising a pill (not yet approved) to increase your longevity? When a fake news show is often the first to let you know about a politician's contradictions? When some of us look around and think “hmmm ... didn't Ray Bradbury write that?” When Disneyland has its own local government in Florida?

For all their confusion, politicians seem to agree on one thing: You gotta give people hope. So here's the bright side of park closures. The empty parks will be swell places for the state's jobless and estimated 160,000 homeless (about 50,000 of them war vets) to gather. (2007 figure from the National Alliance to End Homelessness.)

Sophie Annan Jensen is a retired journalist. She lives in Lucerne.

Congressman Mike Thompson. Courtesy photo.

Congress must act quickly to pass health care reform – the bottom line is we can’t wait any longer.

Across our country, 14,000 Americans are losing their health care coverage every day, joining the 46 million who aren’t covered by health insurance.

I’m as worried as anyone about how we’re going to pay for this overhaul. But the cost of doing nothing is even greater. We must address the lack of access, and the crippling cost of health care that is hurting our families and our economy.

The United States now spends twice as much per capita on health care than almost any other nation, and our outcomes are worse.

Spending on doctors, hospitals, drugs and other health care costs now consumes more than one of every $6 we earn – that’s approaching 20 percent of our country’s gross domestic product.

The growing costs to employers, estimated at 5 percent in 2008, have forced many businesses to cut back on benefits.

It is even worse now during tough economic times. Before the economic downturn, 62 percent of all personal bankruptcies in 2007 were the result of unaffordable medical bills. What's astounding is that three-fourths of those debtors had health insurance.

According to the numbers alone, our system is broken.

But the health care issue is about much more than just numbers.

I’ve heard from countless folks in our district who can’t afford health care, or are struggling to come up with the money to pay their rising premiums.

One constituent likened her health care bills to a second mortgage. Her middle class family has been paying nearly $15,000 a year for health coverage, which is not uncommon. She’s had to cut back on paying for other things in order to afford to keep her family insured.

Her story – and others across our district – underscore the need to act quickly to make sure that all families have affordable access to the care they need.

There is widespread agreement that something must be done. But as is usually the case when making public policy, the devil is in the details.

Changing our health care system will be very difficult, and much compromise will be necessary. No one will get everything they want and after it is done there will be more reform to do.

The American people want health care reform, but at the same time are afraid of losing what they already have – if they already have health care coverage. They want access to quality health care but are most concerned with being able to afford it. Of those who have insurance, few are interested in shifting from an insurance industry bureaucracy to a government bureaucracy.

We need to make sure that people who are happy with the coverage they have can keep it. We need to make sure that the American people will be able to keep their doctors and have a say in their health care decisions.

But we must expand the options, so that Americans who don’t like their plan, or don’t have health care coverage, have a choice. And we can’t afford to wait for an arbitrary “trigger” to be pulled to put this reform into operation. If that is part of the bill, reform likely will never happen.

A public plan that provides true competition will be an important part of this reform. According to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a widely respected nonprofit health policy research foundation, nearly two-thirds of Americans agree with me that we need to make sure that all Americans have access to affordable health care by providing an alternative to the private insurance options that are on the market.

We must ensure that every American has health care coverage, regardless of pre-existing conditions, and that we have adequate protections in place for the doctor-patient relationship.

And we must also make sure that people can keep their coverage if they change jobs, get divorced or their employer changes their options.

By streamlining health care, reducing fraud and abuse, ending unnecessary testing, discouraging overutilization, investing in smart reforms and emphasizing preventive health care, we can significantly bring down the cost of health care.

In addition to working for these changes, I’ll also push to expand access to telemedicine, which provides easier access to health care for people in underserved communities.

We also can make significant cost savings by encouraging more collaboration and patient-centered care by doctors. Rather than paying doctors for the volume of procedures they perform, we should reward them for keeping patients healthy.

Reform won’t be easy, but it is urgent that we act now to make sure that all Americans can access quality, affordable health care.

For the families in our district, and families across the country who can’t afford to go to the doctor or can’t afford the medicine they’ve been prescribed, it’s more urgent than ever that we reform our broken health care system as quickly as possible.

Congressman Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) represents District 1 – which includes Lake County – in the US House of Representatives.

Underage drinking is a serious problem in our nation. Alcohol is the drug of choice for youth and the leading cause of death among teenagers. Alcohol is involved in the deaths of more teens than any other illicit drugs combined. Each year 2,300 teens die due to alcohol. Youth begin drinking on an average of 13 years of age or under. One-third of all sixth graders get alcohol from home. Thirty-six percent of seventh graders receive care for alcohol-related problems.

Team DUI was formed to focus on underage drinking, educating our youth on the realities of drinking and driving in order to prevent one more senseless death or injury.

It takes a herculean effort of planning, setting of objectives and determining courses of action to achieve a significant impact on the alcohol/drug problems within our community. Team DUI has excelled in developing a community-based team that has raised the awareness of the tragic consequence of alcohol/drug abuse while also creating dialog between parents and their children. We believe through the efforts of Team DUI this past year our youth received a healthier understanding of the consequences of choices they make, helping them to better cope with peer pressure.

The approach of Team DUI is nonjudgmental. We offer our youth respect to make the right choices, allowing them to see that choices they make will have lasting effects on themselves and others for the rest of their lives. Team DUI continually strives to help our youth to understand that even as a passenger in a vehicle of an intoxicated driver, they can become a victim.

This year Team DUI has made numerous presentations at middle schools and high schools throughout Lake County, going into classrooms and assemblies. Our team has worked tirelessly to get our message across to over 2,000 youths within our communities. Our speakers came forth with courage and fortitude as they endured months of emotional stress, reliving painful stories in order to help safeguard our youth. As a group, we understand the impact of driving while intoxicated can have on the victim, the intoxicated driver, their families, friends and the community they live in. Each member of Team DUI fulfills a different role, but our message is very powerful when we work together.

Team DUI brings together a large coalition of individuals from law enforcement agencies, local cities and county officials, educators, social service professionals, young people, adults, victims of intoxicated drivers and people who have driven while intoxicated. This year Team DUI welcomed new members, speakers and additional agencies to our program as the overwhelming commitment of members and communities grew stronger. Each member of Team DUI is dedicated to making our community a safer place.

Summer festivities will soon be in full swing. Team DUI would like to further share our message, reminding the community that along with summer festivities comes accountability that is sometimes forgotten. The accountability comes when you step into a motor vehicle. When you are the driver of a motor vehicle, you hold your passenger's life in your hands along with the life of passengers in other vehicles. Life is the most precious gift that we will ever have. To protect life, you must be accountable for life. When you drink and drive, you are capable of causing great bodily harm or even killing; causing lives to be changed forever. If you see yourself in this description either now or previously, it is not too late to hold yourself accountable and strive to change.

To the countless individuals throughout Lake County, Team DUI offers our appreciation for your continual support. To all Team DUI members, I extend my everlasting gratitude for your heartfelt dedication. Team DUI will continue its efforts in the good fight against drinking and driving, as lives have been saved and many more will be saved.

Team DUI wishes everyone a safe and enjoyable summer.

Team DUI founder Judy Thein is the former mayor and current vice mayor for the city of Clearlake. Her daughter was killed in a drunk driving tragedy.

On that point she's contradicted, however, both by a CIA memo and by a Republican former congressman who got the same briefing she did. The current CIA director, a Democrat, says his agency's story, though not infallible, is "the most thorough information we have."

Prominent Republicans, including former Speaker Gingrich, are saying that Pelosi should step down because of this.

Who's right? It is clear that Pelosi has contradicted herself, and that she knew as early as 2003 that waterboarding was in use, long before she raised any public or private objection. But as to whether she was misled by CIA officials in a 2002 briefing, we can't say on the basis of evidence than is publicly available now. That judgment may have to wait for the history books.

Meanwhile, we present in our Analysis section a detailed time line of Pelosi's shifting accounts, the claims of her critics and the evidence produced so far.

Analysis

Pelosi said unequivocally in February: "I can say flat out, they never told us that these enhancement interrogations were being used." In April, she said that "we were not told" about the program at any briefing.

But a CIA memo released May 6 flatly contradicts those claims, stating that CIA personnel gave Pelosi "a description of the particular EITs [Enhanced Interrogation Techniques] that had been employed."

That briefing was in September 2002. Pelosi herself now admits that an aide told her about the interrogation techniques in 2003, but she still maintains that the CIA didn't tell her in 2002 that waterboarding had been used.

On May 14, she escalated her charge, claiming that the CIA deliberately misled legislators. That prompted several Republicans, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former presidential candidate and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Fox News commentator Sean Hannity to call for Pelosi's resignation.

Who's right?

So who is correct? Is Pelosi misleading Americans and then recklessly charging the CIA with deliberate misconduct to cover her tracks, as some Republicans are suggesting? Or is it the CIA memo that's false, perhaps put forth in an effort to claim there was tacit bipartisan approval for acts that some Democrats now say should be prosecuted as criminal?

Evidence is sketchy. So far, no recordings, verbatim transcripts or contemporary notes of Pelosi's 2002 briefing have surfaced, and for all we know none may even exist. All that's known publicly are conflicting, after-the-fact accounts. So we simply can't determine exactly what the CIA told Pelosi in 2002, or exactly when she became aware of what was going on.

One thing is clear: Pelosi herself now concedes that she knew about the CIA program – including the waterboarding – far earlier than she had led the public to believe. Her calls for a "Truth Commission" come six years after she now admits that she first learned about the CIA enhanced interrogation program.

In what follows, we'll lay out what both sides are saying, and leave it to our readers to judge.

She said

We start with a February exchange between Pelosi and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, a liberal commentator who pressed the speaker to explain why she did nothing after being briefed on the techniques in Sept. 2002, at a time when she was the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Pelosi reacted defensively, denying that the CIA told her that the harsh techniques were actually in use:

Maddow (Feb. 25): “September, 2002, you were briefed on CIA, detention issues and enhanced interrogation issues. Because of those briefings – and I know that you expressed concern for the NSA after that October 2001 briefing. You released that publicly in 2006. But you didn't express public concerns at the time after those briefings.”

Pelosi: “The fact is, they did not brief … well, first of all, we're not allowed to talk about what happens there, but I can say they did not brief us with these enhanced interrogations that were taking place. They did not brief us. They were talking about an array of interrogations that they might have at their disposal.”

Maddow: “Techniques in the abstract, as if they were not being used?”

Pelosi: “We were never told they were being used.”

Maddow: “You were told they weren't being used?”

Pelosi: “Well, they just talked about them, but – the inference to be drawn from what they told us was that these are things that we think could be legal. And we have a difference of opinion on that. But they never told us that they were being be used, because that would be a different story altogether. ... And they know that I cannot speak specifically to the classified briefing of that kind. But I can say flat out, they never told us that these enhancement interrogations were being used.”

In an April 23 news conference, Pelosi made an even stronger claim, saying that "we" were not told of the use of waterboarding at the September 2002 briefing "or any other briefing":

Pelosi (April 23): “At that or any other briefing, and that was the only briefing that I was briefed on in that regard, we were not – I repeat, we were not – told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.

“What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel – the Office of Legislative Counsel opinions that they could be used, but not that they would. And they further – further, the point was that if and when they would be used, they would brief Congress at that time. ... My experience was they did not tell us they were using that. Flat out. And any – any contention to the contrary is simply not true.”

Up to this point Pelosi had been adamant that the CIA never informed her that the "techniques" had actually been used on any prisoners. Her April statement broadened the claim even further by stating that "we" (which we take to mean herself and other Democrats) were not told at any briefing that these techniques were being used.

Pelosi backpedals

CIA SealThen came the memo, released on May 6, with a first line that appears to drive a stake through the heart of Pelosi's account of that Sept. 2002 briefing:

CIA memo: Briefing on EITs [Enhanced Interrogation Techniques] on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed.

After that, the backpedaling began. Pelosi said at a news conference on May 14:

Pelosi (May 14): “The CIA briefed me only once on enhanced interrogation techniques in September 2002 in my capacity as ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. I was informed then that the Department of Justice opinions had concluded that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques were legal. The only mention of waterboarding at that briefing was that it was not being employed. Those conducting the briefing promised to inform the appropriate members of Congress if that technique were to be used in the future...Five months later, in February 2003, a member of my staff informed me that the Republican chairman and the Democratic ranking member of the Intelligence Committee had been briefed about the use of certain techniques which had been the subject of earlier legal opinions.”

By her own account, by February 2003, Pelosi knew what the CIA was doing, regardless of whether or not she heard it directly from the CIA. And she knew at the very least that the CIA had informed the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee and Democratic Rep. Jane Harman of California, who by that time had replaced Pelosi as the ranking minority member on the committee.

But Pelosi has never wavered from her assertion that at her Sept. 2002 briefing, the CIA presented its interrogation program as a theoretical possibility and not as a fait accompli. That omission, Pelosi said, amounts to deliberately misleading members of Congress.

They said

The CIA has a different account. On May 6, the agency released a 10-page listing of all its briefings to members of Congress on "enhanced interrogation techniques." First on that list is a Sept. 4, 2002, briefing to Pelosi and Republican Rep. Porter Goss of Florida, who was then chair of the House Intelligence Committee. (Pelosi would soon give up her position as ranking minority member on the committee to take over as House minority leader; Goss would later be appointed head of the CIA.)

As we've said before, the memo contradicts Pelosi's story. We know that the CIA had already waterboarded Abu Zubaydah in August 2002. So if CIA officials really did brief Pelosi and Goss on techniques used on Zubaydah, as the memo clearly states, then Pelosi had to know that waterboarding was more than a theoretical possibility.

What's more, Goss backs up the CIA's version of events, writing in an opinion piece for The Washington Post that:

Goss: “In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA's "High Value Terrorist Program," including the development of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and what those techniques were. This was not a one-time briefing but an ongoing subject with lots of back and forth between those members and the briefers. Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned.”

Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the current ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, likewise sides with the CIA, though he overstates the case somewhat. Hoekstra claims in the Wall Street Journal: "It was not necessary to release details of the enhanced interrogation techniques, because members of Congress from both parties have been fully aware of them since the program began in 2002." Even the CIA hasn't gone that far. The much-disputed briefing with Goss and Pelosi took place Sept. 4, 2002. But the CIA had begun waterboarding at least a full month earlier. Still, Hoekstra does claim that congressional leaders knew of the activities in the fall of 2002, just as the CIA claims.

And even one of Pelosi's fellow Democrats, CIA Director Leon Panetta, is standing by the CIA's version. He says "contemporaneous records" from 2002 back up the accounts given in the 10-page memo released May 6. In a memo to CIA employees, and posted on the agency's Web site May 15, Panetta defended his agency:

Panetta (May 15 memo): “As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing "the enhanced techniques that had been employed.”

Whom do you trust?

So whose story should we believe? The politician who has changed her story already? Or the government agency with its specific time line supported by one of the lawmakers it briefed and also by Panetta? Normally we'd say that's a pretty easy call. But things aren't quite so simple. There are reasons for thinking that the CIA memos aren't all that reliable either.

For one thing, while Panetta says the CIA's 10-page summary of briefings is "the most thorough information we have," he also admits the possibility that it may not be entirely correct. He said in cover letters to chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas and to ranking-member Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, that the account is based on the recollections of CIA officials and on memos created for the record, but he left it to the committee "to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened."

Panetta (May 5 letter to Silvestre Reyes): “This letter presents the most thorough information we have on dates, locations, and names of all Members of Congress who were briefed by the CIA on enhanced interrogation techniques. This information, however, is drawn from the past files of the CIA and represents MFRs [memoranda for the record] completed at the time and notes that summarized the best recollections of those individuals. In the end, you and the Committee will have to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened.”

And sure enough, three different legislators have disputed various details in the CIA's account of the briefings.

Former Sen. Bob Graham, a Democrat who in September 2002 served as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in an interview with the Huffington Post that prior to the release of the memo, the CIA initially told him that CIA records indicated he'd been briefed four times on torture policies.

Graham, however, has rather famously chronicled pretty much every aspect of his life (right down to, say, what he puts in his pockets each day) since his first run for governor of Florida in 1977. Graham checked his notebooks and discovered that, in fact, he was briefed only once, on Sept. 27, 2002. Graham said he informed CIA officials of the discrepancy, telling NPR that after the agency reviewed its records "they indicated that I was correct. Their information was in error. There was no briefing on the first three of four dates."

One CIA official later reportedly offered an explanation for the discrepancy to Spencer Ackerman, who published a story in the liberal-leaning Washington Independent quoting an unnamed "U.S. intelligence official familiar with the briefings" as saying the other three briefings may have involved discussions of detainee interrogations generally, but not the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques." Graham, however, has said that he has no records of the three disputed briefings recorded in his notebooks.

Since then, two other Democrats have come forward to dispute the accuracy of the CIA memos. An aide to West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Politico that the memo showed Rockefeller attending a Feb. 4, 2003, briefing that he did not in fact attend. The CIA memo includes Rockefeller's name with an asterisk, noting that while Rockefeller did not attend the briefing, he was individually briefed later. The aide claims that the individual briefing was actually seven months later, on Sept. 4, 2003.

Moreover, the aide took exception to the claim that the briefings disclosed the full extent of the interrogation program, saying that "Senator Rockefeller has repeatedly stated he was not told critical information that would have cast significant doubt on the program’s legality and effectiveness."

Most recently, Rep. David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, wrote a letter to Panetta claiming that yet another detail is wrong. The memo lists a congressional staffer as having attended a Sept. 19, 2006, briefing. The staffer, however, tells Obey that while he did go to the briefing room, he was turned away by the CIA briefers.

Nor are accusations that the CIA misled Congress particularly new. In May 2006, The Washington Post reported that Mary McCarthy, a former CIA deputy inspector general, "became convinced that 'CIA people had lied' " during a Senate briefing in which CIA officials said that the agency had never violated international treaties prohibiting cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners. McCarthy had been fired a month earlier, for leaking classified information to Post reporter Dana Priest.

The CIA's most recent defense is more tepid. Responding to Obey's charge that parts of the CIA memo are incorrect, CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano told the Washington Independent on May 19 that:

Gimigliano: “While CIA’s information has Mr. Juola attending briefings on September 19, 2006 and October 11, 2007, there are different recollections of these events, which Mr. Obey’s letter describes. As the agency has pointed out more than once, its list — compiled in response to congressional requests — reflects the records it has. These are notes, memos, and recollections, not transcripts and recordings.”

So we're left with Democrats offering one (not always entirely accurate) story and the CIA and some Republicans offering a different (and, again, not always entirely accurate) story.

As Panetta told CIA employees in his May 15 memo, "Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened." That goes for the rest of us. More definitive evidence may yet emerge, but until then everyone will have to reach their own conclusions about how much Pelosi and other members of Congress were told.

Sources

Goss, Porter. "Security Before Politics." Washington Post, 25 April 2009.

Hoekstra, Peter. "Congress Knew About the Interrogations." Wall Street Journal, 22 April 2009.

Lochhead, Carolyn. "Torture battle escalating, Pelosi vs. Boehner: Transcript of April 23, 2009 Pelosi Press Conference." SFGate.com, 23 April 2009, accessed 19 May 2009.

Panetta, Leon. "Message from the Director: Turning Down the Volume." CIA.gov, 15 May 2009, accessed 21 May 2009.

"Pelosi News Conference on Waterboarding Disclosure." Washington Post, 14 May 2009.

Smith, R. Jeffrey. "Fired Officer Believed CIA Lied to Congress." Washington Post, 14 May 2006.

Stein, Sam. "Graham: CIA Gave Me False Information About Interrogation Briefings." Huffington Post, 14 May 2009, accessed 19 May 2009.

"Transcript: One on one with Nancy Pelosi." MSNBC.com, 25 February 2009.