He Said, She Said, We Said, They Said, I Said, You Said . . . .

O for a muse of accurate reporting. Between the politicians and the talking heads one never knows what's going on. And then there are those damned bloggers, you can never believe anything they say.

So Liz Cheney, Dick Cheney, and echoing Cheney my buddy Joe Scarborough,insist that water boarding developed significant information that helped us find more al-Qaida members. There are memos that prove it. In other words, torture works. Yesterday a top FBI anti-terrorism agent, and an interrogator in the hunt for bin Laden, stated to a Congressional committee that they did not get any significant information and in fact the enhanced interrogation techniques were slow and burdensome. So who's not telling the truth.

Cheney has not always been totally truthful about his Haliburton pension, Saddam Hussein trying to obtain uranium, the link between Iraq and al-Qaida. Well actually about a whole lot of things. On the other hand Ali Soufan the ex-FBI agent was hiding behind a screen. And he's an Arab.

I was watching TV last night and saw a lot of commentary on the whole effectiveness of torture thing. Bernie Goldberg and O'Reilly were talking about it. Hardball had a segment on it. I got to thinking that all of these people who are talking about it have no experience with terrorists, what makes them tick, how they react in situations. None of the people talking on TV, almost no congressmen, no one in the Bush State Department, the Bush Administration. Ditto for knowledge of interrogation methods. So to the truly unschooled layman, the concept of doing what ever you need to get done while the bomb is ticking makes some sense. We all know what Jack Bauer would do. But the screenplays for "24" were not written by people with any more expertise in terrorism or interrogation methods. They were written by people with expertise in suspense.

So Goldberg and O'Reilly and the Cheneys and Scarborough, shut up. Listen to Ali Soufan. Wait until memos are declassified. Talk about evidence, not speculations.

Another area where we're hearing more and more and learning less and less is what was said to Nancy Pelosi about enhanced interrogation techniques. She is now insisting that she was not told specifically that waterboarding was in use. John Boehner is insisting that it was. But John Boehner was not in the room. The CIA agents who were in the room aren't talking. There is talk that their notes may be declassified, but up to now we only have a brief description of the topics discussed on a chart. Porter Goss was in the room but he's not saying much.

Again, stop the speculation. I understand that as a politician, Pelosi feels an obligation to answer charges. But until we have more information, I don't think John Boehner should be talking about the matter.

Then again, I don't think John Bohner should be doing much talking at all.