The willful ignorance of Nancy Pelosi

Power Line:

The other day, Nancy Pelosi was asked about President Bush's statement that al Qaeda is responsible for the surge of violence in Iraq. Pelosi responded that "the 9/11 Commission dismissed that notion a long time ago and I feel sad that the President is resorting to it again." But of course the 9/11 Commission said nothing about al Qaeda's involvement in post-invasion Iraq. Its findings pertained only to the situation under Saddam Hussein.

Had a Republican leader been this confused, the MSM would have pounced. But since it was Pelosi, the MSM did not. To the contrary, NBC's David Gregory, who takes obnoxious exception to Bush administration comments at the drop of a hat, passed along Pelosi's claim as if it were true, and went on to suggest that Bush's rhetoric about al Qaeda will make it harder for Democrats to work with the White House. It seems implausible that even the Dems would decline to work with the White House on the grounds that it mentions terrorism by al Qaeda -- imagine if the Republicans had refused to work with Pres. Roosevelt because he mentioned fascism -- but perhaps just this once Gregory knows something we don't.

There's more to this story than Pelosi's appalling ignorance and Gregory's shameless bias....

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That some Democrats and some in the media are willing to deny the obvious tells you all you need to know about their integrity. It is not enough that there is an organization called al Qaeda in Iraq that is responsible for the bulk of the human bomb attacks and the attacks on Shia non combatants. But if these clueless people were paying any attention at all they would have noticed that Zawahiri and bin Laden have both said these people were operating as a part of their organization. So what this must mean is that Pelosi either missed that or she is really not interested in going after al Qaeda either. BTW, I can across a link to a CNN story on Pelosi's statement but it did not work. I then did a search on the CNN site and still could not find the story. Perhaps David Gregory is not the only one covering for her.

Update: Neal Boortz also comments on Pelosi's obtuseobservations on al Qaeda in Iraq:

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Now Pelosi made that statement on November 28th. November 28th would be 18 days after November 10th. That's two and one-half weeks. Eighteen days is enough time for even the obtuse Nancy Pelosi (sorry for the redundancy) to absorb the fact that on that date Al Qaeda released a video tape claiming that they had 12,000 fighters working in Iraq. Al Qaeda brags of the number of fighters it has mobilized to battle American troops in Iraq, and Pelosi says she is sad that the president is saying that Al Qaeda has fighters in Iraq.

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Sometimes a person hears only what they want to hear. Facts are not permitted to get in the way of their anti war bias.