Whichever side of the torture debate you're on, it's a simple matter of fact that Nancy Pelosi's claims about what she was told and when about torture are getting far more intense media scrutiny than the CIA's claims are.
Simple fairness demands that both side's claims get treated with a similar level of skepticism. And they're not.
Multiple news accounts this morning report that Pelosi's credibility is in question after yesterday's press conference, in which she accused the CIA of lying about what they told members of Congress about the agency's use of torture. This theme was sounded by MSNBC, WaPo's Dan Balz, the New York Times write-up, and many others.
That's as it should be. But I challenge you to find a news account that stated with equal prominence that the CIA's credibility is also in question.
Let's briefly recap. Three senior Democrats - Pelosi, Bob Graham, and Jay Rockefeller - have all publicly claimed that the CIA didn't brief them about the use of torture in the manner the agency has claimed. Meanwhile, the CIA itself has conceded that its own accounting may not be accurate.
