Our Broken Debate

The big question in the debate over torture right now is “who knew what and when did they know it?” That question is being used by Republicans right now to implicate Speaker Nancy Pelosi as having done nothing with what she knew and thus being complicit in any torture committed under the previous administration. The question and implications are very important questions that are worthy of debate in this country. The reason that I consider the debate to be broken is that the debate is avoiding the real substantive issue and just taking political potshots at the opposing party.

The fact is that speaker Pelosi is not in any way the only hypocrite in this debate – she is not the only one who knew and did nothing until it was politically advantageous. Democratic officeholders have been muttering under their breath (or less) about what the Bush administration was doing until Obama was elected and released the torture memos. In response the CIA is trying to defend themselves from these vocal attacks by revealing that Pelosi knew about this activity years ago.

If the Democrats were more interested in standing against torture in principle than they were in scoring political points and retaining personal power they would have been much more vocal about this issue. Speaker Pelosi would have been saying things like, “based on briefings I have had I am completely uncomfortable with what the administration is doing and willing to do to detainees through the CIA.” (Note that while that statement would open the door for discussion nothing in there would raise any national security concerns.) She would not have been alone either – other Democrats who had been briefed would also have stood up and echoed that sentiment if they had any backbone and cared about the issue. Senator Diane Feinstein would have been one of those who had also been briefed. I don’t know who else had been briefed, but all of them are guilty of doing nothing if they were uncomfortable with what they heard.

On the other hand, if the Republicans were interested in anything other than scoring points against their political opponents they would be naming the Republicans who had been briefed who were equally complicit with Speaker Pelosi. Republican officeholders have proven that they are perfectly content to have spineless and complicit representatives in office so long as they support the party line. They show that as a body they have no problem with institutionalized secrecy rather than open representation for their constituents and the other voters of the United States.

The voters need to demand that their representatives, whether of their own party or another party, quit playing politics in Washington and stick to the very serious business of leading our nation on to increased greatness – we should again be a shining city on a hill that the world can look to as an example of goodness. That can only happen if we quite trying to score political points and start having real debates about what is right and what constitutes greatness.