The greatest challenge in absorbing the Nancy Pelosi story is shelving our personal and political feelings about her.

For her supporters, that means suppressing the instinct to defend her at all costs. For critics, that means suppressing the default setting of despising her.

Purely objectively, this is a story of what she knew and when she knew it, with regard to the enhanced interrogation techniques used on detainees in the years following 9/11.

Our opinions of those techniques slant our view further. Supporters of those practices want Pelosi to pay dearly for opposing them, in particular, and for undercutting the war, in general. Opponents of enhanced interrogations want her to survive, even thrive, because she is one of the faces and voices of opposition to a war effort they revile.

Anyone is free to support or oppose the war and its attendant policies, but among Democrats, the venom has sometimes driven them to stunning excess. Rep. John Murtha’s derision of Marines as cold-blooded killers, Sen. Ted Kennedy’s equation of Abu Ghraib misdeeds with Saddam Hussein’s torture chambers and Harry Reid’s dispiriting – and now provably wrong – claim that “this war is lost” have proven there is no depth to which some will go to hamper the war effort with smears.

Pelosi’s conflict is with the CIA, which she accuses of lying about briefings afforded members of Congress when waterboarding and other techniques were implemented in an effort to secure information that could save American lives.

That motivation never has been sufficient for the left, which always has been more mortified by Halliburton than by al-Qaeda. In their world, where Guantánamo is a modern Auschwitz, the Bush administration effort to ramp up interrogations was not merely cause for disagreement but a necessary stepping-off point for condemnation, with the ultimate goal of criminalizing policies they disagreed with.

In 2003, as the CIA informed appropriate members of Congress about waterboarding, Nancy Pelosi was either in the loop or not.

If she was not, as she suggests, that speaks to a stunning dereliction of duty. How in heaven’s name could the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee not know of such vital developments?

That is so implausible that almost no one believes it, even among her liberal base, which creates multiple problems. War supporters can be expected to criticize her for retroactive opposition to a practice she saw fit to tolerate in 2003. But to war-bashers, the notion of their heroine knowing about waterboarding and choosing not to rail loudly against it at the time is infuriating.

The speaker has now chosen to protect herself by asserting that the CIA is lying when it says she was briefed about waterboarding. Her attempt to explain this last week was a news conference disaster for the ages.

Someone is lying.

If it is the CIA, Pelosi should launch an investigation to reveal the spy agency’s dishonesty. If it is Pelosi, we have to figure out how to evaluate the sinister notion of a politician slandering the intelligence community to save her political hide.

The future of this story will be infused with political passions on both sides.

President Barack Obama and other Democrats are already on the record standing by her, but they have to be wondering how long they will be able to keep that up.

Republicans are rubbing their hands with glee, savoring the possible fall from grace of a nemesis blamed for burdening soldiers and interrogators whose efforts prevented further attacks on American soil and paved the way for freedom for Iraq.

In that environment, objective truth will be elusive. But it must be found. Either the CIA or the speaker of the House is lying. A deserved heavy price lies ahead for whoever it is.

Have PoliticalMavens.com delivered to your inbox in a daily digest by clicking here