by Gary Gross at 03:02 PM

It's been awhile since I've fisked a Pelosi statement so this is the perfect opportunity to do exactly that. Here's the text of Pelosi's statement on FISA:

"All Members of Congress fully understand and support our responsibility to protect the American people and the need for the President, the Congress, and policymakers to have the best possible intelligence to fight terrorism."

That's BS. Instead of starting the debate on the Senate bill that passed with strong bipartisan support, Pelosi's Democrats instead held a hearing on whether Roger Clemens had used HGH and anabolic steroids. Instead of debating the Senate bill, they took a vote that said former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and current White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten were guilty of contempt of the House.

"On Friday, a surveillance law insisted upon by the President last August will expire. Today, an overwhelming majority of House Democrats voted to extend that law for three weeks so that agreement could be reached with the Senate on a better version of that law. The President and House Republicans refused to support the extension and therefore will bear the responsibility should any adverse national consequences result."

That's BS, too. Here's the truth:

House Democrats were unable to hold together their caucus on a key intelligence vote on Wednesday, as a coalition of Republicans, Blue Dog Democrats and liberals helped defeat a measure to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as the deadline approaches.

The measure, which failed 191 to 229, would have extended the bill an additional three weeks to work out differences with the Senate on the issue of granting immunity to telecom companies which aided the federal government in wiretapping.

The Democratic bill was undone by strong opposition from Republicans and 34 Democrats, including both members of the moderate Blue Dog Coalition who want to see a bill passed, and liberal members who oppose many other aspects of the wiretapping program.

You can't reconcile Pelosi's statement with the facts. It's like saying Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee were both telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Pelosi's statement is totally refuted by the vote that prevented an extension of the Protect America Act.

"However, even if the Protect America Act expires later this week, the American people can be confident that our country remains safe and strong. Every order entered under the law can remain in effect for 12 months from the date it was issued."

At best, we can say that we can't prove that we're weaker as a result of Pelosi's inaction. While it's true that warrants that've already been issued didn't expire when the bill expired, it's equally true that the NSA has to apply for a warrant if they want to surveil someone that wasn't already in their system.

"Furthermore, the underlying Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which provides for the surveillance of terrorists and provides that in emergencies surveillance can begin without warrant, remains intact and available to our intelligence agencies. Unlike last August, the FISA court has no backlog of cases, and thus can issue necessary court orders for surveillance immediately."

Ms. Pelosi makes it sound like FISA warrant applications can be filled out with the speed of light. A FISA warrant application takes a long time to fill out. It isn't like filling out a short form tax return. These applications are hundreds of pages long. After that, they're carefully reviewed. That's why so few of the applications have been rejected.

The simple truth is that Ms. Pelosi knows she screwed up bigtime and she's panicking in her attempt to spin this so she doesn't get her butt handed to her next November.

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