Across the progressive blogosphere, questions are being raised about why there isn't more anger and outrage that Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Tenet approved of the crime of torture and subsequently Bush signed off on the torture or as TPR Muckraker says, "Bush: Yeah, we signed off on torture. So what?" 

There is frustration concerning the media's ho hum attitude and lack of banner headlines about this appalling news, reported by ABC, regarding the president, vice-president and cabinet officials' criminal conspiracy.

Maybe the press has known about it since it occurred and as loyal Bush stenographers, swept it under the rug to protect the administration, and considered it old news.  So much for the integrity of the Fourth Estate.

But Cursor.org leads off today with links that offer some nitty gritty including questions about how much Democrats like Nancy Pelosi knew.

From Invictus come this: "My colleague at Docudharma describes the situation accurately. He also notes that the inaction of a pivotal figure in this drama -- the ostensibly liberal Democrat Nancy Pelosi -- marks her as a member of this same conspiracy, not least because "she was... partially informed that it was occurring." I made much the same point in an essay last December (also published at Docudharma and Daily Kos, with a vibrant discussion at each). Let's revisit what Pelosi had to say about her "briefings" in the light of today's knowledge:

"On one occasion, in the fall of 2002, I was briefed on interrogation techniques the Administration was considering using in the future. The Administration advised that legal counsel for the both the CIA and the Department of Justice had concluded that the techniques were legal.

"I had no further briefings on the techniques. Several months later, my successor as Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman, was briefed more extensively and advised the techniques had in fact been employed. It was my understanding at that time that Congresswoman Harman filed a letter in early 2003 to the CIA to protest the use of such techniques, a protest with which I concurred." 

"It may be time to ask both Pelosi and Harman what they knew and when they knew it. But I think we already know the answer to those questions, and it's not a comforting one. The ABC revelations -- that the U.S. leadership, including the president, vice-president, national security officers and secretaries of defense and state, the attorney general and the head of the CIA are all implicated in the specific instructions given to torturers, and not only approving but directing such torture -- represent as stark a confrontation with the truth of the complete corruption and evil that lies at the heart of our government as any we will get."

And from Docudharma:

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.  

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Will they get away with it?  Probably, given the lack of Democratic leadership in the House and Senate.

And now we know why impeachment is still off the table.  No wonder Nancy Pelosi is a less than stellar Speaker of the House, if not one of the most deficient, mediocre, and frustrating.

However, in the long run the Democratic leadership in Congress, by ignoring this and other crimes and failing to impeach the president and vice-president, will have caused as much damage, some of it irreparable, to this country and its people and be as guilty as Bush and members of his Republican administration who committed these terrible crimes.