Speaker Pelosi Lied? N.Y. Times Puts It On Page A-18

The top of the front page of Friday’s Washington Post was all about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s press conference in which she accused the CIA of deliberately misleading her in 2002 about waterboarding. There were two stories up top and a box promising two more stories inside. So what about the New York Times? There was no Pelosi story anywhere on Page One, just a plug to a story inside – on page A-18.

Here’s what went on the front page instead: Chrysler telling dealers to close, Mexican immigration plummeting, Afghans fault U.S. for airstrikes, the end of a pension case at the Carlyle Group, an advertising story headlined "Does Ranting Sell? Worth a Try," and the light story of the day: "For Frozen Entrees, ‘Heat and Eat’ Isn’t Enough." It came complete with a photo of a Banquet chicken pot pie box.

Inside, Carl Hulse’s report was headlined "Pelosi Says She Knew of Waterboarding by Early 2003." The story itself featured Pelosi’s Republican critics and tried to square Pelosi’s new claims with her public actions:

In her roles as both Democratic leader after 2004 and then speaker after Democrats won control of the House in 2006, Ms. Pelosi has been an outspoken critic of the administration’s treatment of detainees, saying the specter of torture had damaged the nation’s reputation and put military forces at risk.

But it was not until late 2007 that it was disclosed that, as the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Ms. Pelosi had been briefed to some degree on the interrogation methods.

Missing from the Hulse story was any leftist outraged that Pelosi would know of the waterboarding and not oppose it vigorously.