...if only to rub someone's nose in it.

Do you remember it? It was Rep. Rob Bishop's (R-UT-01) attempt to frame an attack on Speaker Pelosi in the form of a question of the privileges of the House

RESOLUTION

Raising a question of the privileges of the House.

Whereas the Honorable Nancy Pelosi, a Representative from California, served from 1997 to 2002 as Ranking Democratic Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence;

Whereas Representative Pelosi currently serves as Speaker of the House, a position of considerable power and influence within the Congress;

Whereas title 3 of the United States Code designates the Speaker of the House as third in line of succession to the Presidency;

Whereas Speaker Pelosi has publicly challenged the truthfulness of what she and other congressional leaders were told by Central Intelligence Agency officials about the agency's use of enhanced interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists;

Whereas in an MSNBC interview on February 25, 2009, Speaker Pelosi stated, `I can say flat-out, they never told us that these enhanced interrogation techniques were being used';

Whereas Speaker Pelosi's public statements allege a sustained pattern of deception by government intelligence officers charged by law with informing Congress about the agency's activities;

Whereas when asked at a press conference on May 15, 2009, widely reported by the news media, `Madame Speaker, just to be clear, you're accusing the CIA of lying to you in September?' Speaker Pelosi stated, `Yes';

Whereas during the same press conference the Speaker subsequently stated, `So yes, I'm saying they are misleading, the CIA was misleading the Congress' and further, `they mislead us all the time' and `they misrepresented every step of the way';

Whereas in a memorandum to CIA employees released publicly on May 15, 2009, Leon Panetta, the CIA Director, stated, `It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing the enhanced interrogation techniques that had been employed';

Whereas national and international media reports on this controversy have damaged the reputation of the House by raising questions about whether the effectiveness of congressional oversight may have been undermined through false or misleading statements by intelligence officials; and

Whereas in order to safeguard the reputation of the House it is imperative to reconcile as soon as possible the aforementioned contradictory statements by Speaker Pelosi and CIA Director Panetta: Now, therefore, be it

     Resolved, That--

           (1) a Select Subcommittee of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence shall be established to review and verify the accuracy of the Speaker's aforementioned public statements;

           (2) the Select Subcommittee shall be comprised of four members of the full committee, two appointed by the chairman of the committee and two by its ranking minority member;

           (3) The subcommittee shall have the same powers to obtain testimony and documents pursuant to subpoena authorized under clause 2(m) of rule XI of the Rules of the House; and

           (4) the Select Subcommittee report its findings and recommendations to the House not later than sixty calendar days after adoption of this resolution.

Ultimately, the resolution was ruled not to present a question of the privileges of the House, so it wasn't considered on an expedited basis. But it's still a live bill. Should we now have that investigation, though, given this development?

CIA Director Leon Panetta told the House Intelligence Committee that the agency had misled and "concealed significant actions from all members of Congress" dating back to 2001 and continuing until late June, according to a letter from seven Democrats on the panel.

Nah. The resolution itself isn't going to do much good. And neither will rolling it up and swatting Bishop on the nose with it, really.

But if he really wanted an answer, I guess he's got one now.