Let's see a show of hands. After her performance on television, does anyone still believe that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi really didn't know about the torture of terrorism suspects? Anyone? No, we didn't think so.

Demeanor aside, the evidence is against her-not only the rebuttal of new CIA Director Leon Panetta but also the recollection of Porter Goss, the only other legislator present at a September 2002 CIA briefing where, agency representatives say, they informed the two members of the House Intelligence Committee-ranking Democrat Pelosi and Republican Chairman Goss-that waterboarding had been used on terrorism suspects detained by the United States.

Pelosi says she was briefed only that once and that while the agency said torture was legal, representatives also said it hadn't been used. Goss' recollection matches the agency's

assertion, not Pelosi's, and Panetta said CIA files support Goss. Pelosi is now on the defensive, asserting her staunch and lengthy opposition to torture and accusing the CIA of misleading Congress. Later Pelosi said that, well, she had learned of waterboarding in 2003 but didn't speak out because of secrecy rules.

Pelosi needs to stop fudging. Act like a leader. Admit the mistake and squarely face the consequences. Anything less is not useful, but it is only a part of what needs doing.

In another comment she was quite right: She has said that this debate over what she knew and when is a distraction. And it is very true that the people who are criticizing her prevarications now, who are spewing mock outrage about her attacks on the CIA's veracity, also acquiesced in the torture of prisoners. The only person who can honestly claim to have opposed all of this is Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold, who from the start was a vocal opponent of the Iraq war and everything attached to it.

In this morality play, Pelosi is not the lead but a member of the chorus singled out for a solo, yet she could be a great leader and perform a great service by acknowledging her complicity in

allowing torture, apologizing and then articulating the lesson we all must learn.

The lesson is this: We cannot allow fear to stampede us into convenient immorality. As experts have said, torture doesn't produce information. As we have seen, letting the baser instincts of the defunct Bush administration control policy caused massive damage to the image of the United States, our position in the world and our ability to advocate for change.

We can recover if the leaders involved will be honest and acknowledge their mistakes. Admitting a problem is the first step toward moving beyond it. If they don't take that first step they won't go anywhere, and neither will we.