Suddenly, out of nowhere, Madame Speaker respected proper channels to the point that she was willing to say nothing about alleged torture by the government. Uh huh.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi learned in early 2003 that the Bush administration was waterboarding terror detainees but didn’t protest directly out of respect for “appropriate” legislative channels, a confidant of the San Francisco Democrat said Monday…

[T]here’s no dispute that on Feb. 4, 2003 — five months after Pelosi’s September meeting — CIA officials briefed Pelosi aide Michael Sheehy and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), then the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, on the specific techniques that had been used on Zubaydah — including waterboarding.

Harman was so alarmed by what she had heard, she drafted a short letter to the CIA’s general counsel to express “profound” concerns with the tactic — going so far as to ask if waterboarding had been personally “approved by the president.”

According to the Pelosi confidant, Sheehy told Pelosi about the briefing — and later informed Pelosi, the newly elected minority leader, that Harman was drafting a protest letter. Pelosi told Sheehy to tell Harman that she agreed with the letter, the Pelosi insider said. But she did not ask to be listed as a signatory on the letter, the source said, and there is no reference to her in it…

“She felt that the appropriate response was the letter from Harman, because Jane was the one who was briefed,” said the person. Pelosi “never got briefed on it personally, and when Harman got a ‘no response’ from the CIA, there was nothing more that could be done.”

As Allahpundit says, lying is expected and bearable. Bad lying in intolerable. If waterboarding is as horrible as Democrats (including Pelosi) now allege, wouldn’t an appropriate response be to have leaked the details to the press? Or perhaps pressure GOP leadership to inquire further? Or, here’s a crazy idea, write your own letter? At least you’d get on record opposing the EITs before they were discovered by the media and there were political points to be scored. Pelosi was so outraged that she couldn’t even bother to be briefed herself, instead resorting to sending a staffer.

Which lie is this? Three? Four? Pelosi first claimed that she knew nothing at all about the waterboarding. Then the story changed to knowing that the CIA was considering the techniques, but that it was all hypothetical at that point. Now we’re told that she knew about Zubaydah actually being waterboarded, but that she didn’t co-sign a protest letter because she respected the “appropriate channels”. How long before we find out that she personally waterboarded terrorists, laughing maniacally the entire time?