By Bob Beckel - May 19, 2009

Did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi step into a political quagmire during her press conference on the Bush Administration's torture tactics? Yes. Will President Obama's agenda lose momentum now that this "who said what and when" drama will suck oxygen out of the presidents tailwind? Almost certainly. Will there now be some type of independent commission established to investigate the treatment of war prisoners during the Bush/Cheney reign? Count on it. Who will suffer the greatest political damage from all this? Without question the Republican Party.

Watching Republicans rush to the microphones after the Pelosi press conference last Thursday to salivate over the speaker's performance, I was reminded of the somber parade of GOP House members as they made the walk from the House to the Senate carrying the Articles of Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton. In their hands they held what they surely believed to be a weapon that would doom the Clinton Presidency and insure election year victories solidifying Republican majorities.

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That was 1998. What unfolded that year was; the exoneration of Clinton in the Senate; a massive public revulsion against Republicans for pursuing such a ridiculous pogrom; the loss of GOP seats in the House and Senate; and the ouster of House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Will Republicans never learn? Do they really believe that Middle America cares about what Nancy Pelosi knew and when she knew it? If so they will be in for a stunning lesson in the old "be careful what you ask for" school of dumb desires.

For those few Republicans who do understand the potential for blow back from such an investigation and don't want it, the issue is settled. There will be an investigative body established by an act of Congress. But it will be the majority Democrats who will define the parameters of the investigation. Of necessity that will include Pelosi's involvement but the scope will be much, much broader if for no other reason than to dilute the impact of the Speaker's exposure.

The mandate will insure that everything from secret CIA prisons in foreign countries, to the tortured legal rational by Bush/Cheney lawyers on the dubious legality of waterboarding; to Dick Cheney's public statements about an Iraqi nuclear program and Iraqi involvement in 9/11; to Bush Administration members who will testify that no WMD were in Iraq before the war; to the FBI's insistence that what helpful intelligence did come from captured terrorists was in hand before waterboarding and enhanced investigation tactics were employed; and much more.

By the time this investigation is concluded (probably as campaign 2010 heats up) Nancy Pelosi's briefing history will be a footnote to a scathing report on the Bush/Cheney attempts at fabricating or creating intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. What's more, for the length of the investigation the most public figure will not be Nancy Pelosi but rather Dick Cheney, arguably the most unpopular politician in America. His presence will only remind Americans of the Bush Administration, indisputably the most unpopular Administration in the past fifty years.

What Pelosi knew and when she knew it is only interesting to the base of the Republican Party. That base has already shrunk to a dangerously low percentage of voters (between 20 and 25 percent according to some polls). With numbers that small Republicans could qualify for Affirmative Action Grants under civil rights law.

There's no reason to assume, however, that the Republicans will shy away from this suicide course. The Clinton impeachment was only one example of the Republican penchant for self inflicted political wounds. Their pursuit of Pelosi now has the potential to exact even more pain on an already wounded GOP. History tells us that the party out of power picks up Congressional seats in midterm elections. The Republican desire to revisit the Bush years may well insure history, in this case, does not repeat itself.

Instead of acting like a minority party and raising policy alternatives to President Obama's far reaching initiatives, the GOP has decided that opening the wounds of the Bush Administration to topple Speaker Pelosi is somehow smart politics. Certainly there will be some damage done to the Obama agenda simply because an investigation of this magnitude could well push Obama's initiatives off the front pages but only for a brief time.

Most Republicans on the Hill believe pursuing Pelosi is smart politics. It's not, and it may well be political suicide. In the end Nancy Pelosi might get a black eye from all of this, but the Republicans will end up in the intensive care unit on their continuing journey toward political flat lining.

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