Hoekstra gets praise, criticism for Pelosi comments

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Holland), still ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee while running for governor, has created controversy in recent days with his demand that the CIA release the actual minutes of briefings that may have informed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders about the use of abuse and torture on detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. That demand is attracting both agreement and disagreement from Democrats.

The criticism is coming from Sylvestre Reyes (D-Texas), who replaced Hoekstra as chair of the House Intelligence Committee when Democrats took control of the House of Representatives in 2006. The Hill reports on Reyes’ harsh allegations that Hoekstra is endangering national security by asking for the release of those memos:

House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) is accusing his Republican counterpart, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), of compromising national security in order to stoke the ongoing flap over what Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) knew about harsh Bush-era interrogation techniques.

“It’s irresponsible what Republicans are doing, particularly in Mr. Hoekstra’s case,” Reyes said Tuesday. “When you’re asking to declassify material that’s been classified for a very good reason — that’s the height of irresponsibility.”

But if that was truly the case, why isn’t Reyes criticizing the Obama administration for declassifying and releasing so much material about our mistreatment of detainees? Or Senate Armed Services committee chairman Carl Levin, whose committee just released a report containing hundreds of memos on the subject?

Support for Hoekstra’s demands is coming from an unexpected place: Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland), the Majority Leader who is second in command to Pelosi in the House.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) offered a different take earlier Tuesday, endorsing a full accounting of “what was said and when it was said, and who said it.”

“I think that probably ought to be on the record as well, so the American public knows that,” he said.

I agree. There’s little doubt that Hoekstra and the Republicans are attempting to use the fact that some key Democratic leaders knew about waterboarding and other abusive interrogation techniques being used on detainees as a way to distract attention away from the culpability of the Bush administration and the GOP in this situation and to force the Democrats to back off on their threats of public investigations and possible prosecution out of fear that their own leadership may be caught up in such investigations.

If they succeed at doing that, then shame on the Democrats. Hoyer is right, the American public has a right to know not only who ordered and carried out torture in their name, but who knew about it and what they did in response to that knowledge as well. And if that reflects badly on some Democratic leaders, not only is that okay, I would argue it’s a very good thing. What better way to disprove the argument from Republicans that such investigations are merely a matter of political revenge than by a truly non-partisan investigation that implicates Democrats too?

Both parties are playing political games with this issue, but torture is not a game. It is a very serious crime and those responsible for it should be held accountable — and so should those who may have aided and abetted that crime with their silent complicity.