The long awaited press conference of Speaker Pelosi was held today. After attempting to talk about anything and everything but her accusation against the CIA for as long as possible the speaker finally opened the floor up for questions. To no one's surprise, the first question was about her charges and she responded as such.
"I have made the statement that I'm going to make on this. I don't have any more to say on this I stand by my comments. And what we are doing is staying on our course and not being distracted from it."
I can only assume that the Speaker is a veteran and savvy politician because she is acting like a rookie flunky throughout and this latest dismissal and denial is another example. There is a very simple rule in politics, either you define yourself or your opponents define you. The president is very cognizant of this rule and on every single issue he is proactive in managing the message so that he defines the issue.
So, what has the speaker done here? If she won't say anymore, then that means the only ones speaking about the issue will be her opponents. Democrats would like to run away from this as much as possible. So, we can expect very few to address this themselves. As such, the issue will now be largely defined by Republicans.
If this were farm subsidies it wouldn't really matter. This is about an accusation by the third in line against our spies that they lied. This issue isn't going away and the continuing battle over GITMO only adds fuel.
So, the Speaker can continue to maintain silence and allow Republicans to accuse her of lying and demand an investigation. On the other hand, she can reverse herself in the next few weeks and months and end her silence.
If she does the first, it will only be Republicans talking about it. That means the story will be defined as accusations that the Speaker made against the CIA with absolutely no back up. It will be defined as a politician smearing our fearless spies for political purposes.
If, on the other hand, the Speaker sees that things are getting away and breaks her silence, then she will be chasing the story. The story will then become why she was silent for so long and why she broke her silence.
In other words, this is big mess that gets bigger daily and it isn't stopping. I will make a bold prediction. I give the Speaker until the end of they year and sometime between now and then she will be removed.
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