Torture, Nancy Pelosi and how the Bush administration squashes dissent

So, there's a wonderful op-ed in the NYT today about torture and the process by which members of congress were informed about the torture (or "enhanced interrogation") back in 2000.  It says that only four members of Congress were informed about the program, in a way that essentially spelled political disaster for any one of the members of Congress were they to come clean about the program.  Of course, in a world where humans are principled people who hold to their principles firmly enough to become martyrs, Nancy Pelosi would have done what the author of the op-ed recommends, and marched down the aisle of Congress denouncing the program.  But Nancy Pelosi isn't so smart or so principled or so brave.  She got to the position she is first by being a mean, crafty politician.  To be the first female speaker of the house, you have to be all of that.  So she kept quiet.

I may not think she acted correctly, but I can see her motivations.  What I want more than anything else is an apology from her - she deserves to give not only her constituents (who, of all constituents in the continental united states would be the most likely to forgive her for speaking her mind) an apology but also all women apologies - when she became speaker I rejoiced to have one more glass ceiling broken, but now that joyous event has been sullied.

A quote:

But four members cannot stop financing and ban activities on their own — that takes the whole Congress. So what might the four have done? They could have demanded that the full committees receive the briefings and that more information be provided. If the White House objected, they could have told their colleagues anyway. The committees then could have put a classified budget provision in the intelligence authorization bill for fiscal year 2003 cutting off money for the program, or delineating how the C.I.A. must treat detainees.

The speech and debate clause of the Constitution shields senators and representatives from civil and criminal liability in the performance of their legislative duties. It would have protected those members if they had decided to march down to the House or Senate floor and denounce the Bush administration for engaging in torture, though that approach not only could have harmed C.I.A. operations, but also surely would have been political suicide.