By RICK KLEIN

What would Teddy do?

That depends on which lessons one might draw from the life and career of Sen. Ted Kennedy, here in this brief period where his passing has allowed a rare moment of reflection in the debate he never saw come to a close.

There?s Kennedy the deal-maker, the one whom Republicans are pining for now, and who always wished he?d taken a half-measure on universal health coverage back when he had that fleeting chance.

And there?s Kennedy the true-believer, the man whom liberals are, well, lionizing as they fight to preserve a health care reform bill they think Kennedy himself would have proudly championed.

It?s these aspects of the towering Kennedy legacy — neither less true than the other — that now shape the health care debate.

As that sorts itself out, three days of services and ceremonies start Thursday.

After a noon ET private family Mass, the motorcade carrying the senator?s remains will leave the Kennedy compound around 1 pm ET. In Boston, it will pass some landmarks of his life — through the North End, the Rose Kennedy Greenway, and past Faneuil Hall and the State House — before arriving at the John F. Kennedy Library around 4 pm.

Friday is for public viewing an evening memorial service. President Obama will speak at the funeral Saturday in Boston, before Kennedy reaches his final resting place, alongside his brothers at Arlington National Cemetery.

In remembering a life and a legacy, that unfinished piece looms large:

?Edward M. Kennedy filled two seemingly contradictory roles during his years in the Senate: He was known as the chamber?s most liberal member and as the Democrat with an uncanny ability to reach across to conservative Republicans and reach compromises,? Michael Kranish and Lisa Wangsness report in The Boston Globe. ?The question is whether Kennedy?s death paradoxically might shift power farther to the left as other Democrats seek to solidify their base.?

?The death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy has quickly become a rallying point for Democratic advocates of a broad health care overhaul, a signature Kennedy issue that became mired in partisanship while he fought his illness away from the Capitol,? Carl Hulse and Katharine Q. Seelye report in The New York Times.

?It seemed unlikely that Republicans would suddenly soften their firm opposition in the aftermath of Mr. Kennedy?s death or that Democrats would relent on their push for substantial change, especially for a government-run insurance plan, which Mr. Kennedy endorsed.?

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to ABC?s Diane Sawyer on ?Good Morning America? Thursday: ?I would hope that his example of working together, coming together in the spirit of compromise, for the sake and the good of the American people, would have some effect.?

Can it be both of these things? ?Some lawmakers said Tuesday the current stalemate is the result of Kennedy’s absence for the past few, crucial months. Some hope to rescue the embattled legislation as his legacy,? the AP?s Laurie Kellman reports.

The health care debate is missing a key player, but has a key source of inspiration.

?You’ve heard of ‘win one for the Gipper’? There is going to be an atmosphere of ‘win one for Teddy,’ ? Ralph G. Neas, the CEO of the National Coalition on Health Care, told ABC?s Teddy Davis.

Davis reports: ?Democratic officials hope that invoking Kennedy’s passion for the issue will counter slippage in support for health care reform. . . . To infuse Kennedy into the health-care debate, Democrats are planning to affix the former senator’s name to the health-care legislation that emerges from Congress.?

Politico?s Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin: ?Kennedy’s death will frame the central struggle of Obama’s young presidency, the charge to drive health care legislation through the Senate. The loss of his vote and his deal-making prowess are a profound blow to the bill’s prospects, but his allies hope his memory will carry it through.?

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.: ?If temperatures can cool, maybe Teddy’s passing will remind people that we’re there to get a job done.?

?Will Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death be the catalyst for finally achieving what he called the cause of his life, health care for all?? Jill Lawrence writes for Politics Daily. ?There are some differences even Kennedy wouldn’t have been able to bridge. At this juncture, with a strong ally in the White House and Democratic majorities in Congress, maybe he wouldn’t have been inclined to.?

No one will pick up this mantle: ?Throughout, there never has been a politician who brought more of that rare combination of commitment, passion and exuberance to the profession; he loved politics and understood better than anyone that it?s a human business,? Bloomberg?s Al Hunt recalls. ?That?s why he was the best.?

?The loss of Sen. Ted Kennedy to brain cancer has produced an outpouring of praise and affection from across the political spectrum — a reaction that in its own way only raises a profound question: Where have all the deal makers like him gone?? Gerald F. Seib writes in his Wall Street Journal column.

Regarding the missteps, ?He did more than outlive them — he made up for them. Teddy Kennedy constantly improved. Teddy Kennedy constantly got better,? Vice President Joe Biden told ABC?s Chris Cuomo, on ?Good Morning America? Thursday. ?He was one hell of a man.?

What might be critical, depending on the deal that?s cut: ?There is no Democrat — not even President Obama — who commands so much automatic respect on the party’s left,? Doyle MacManus writes for the Los Angeles Times.

?The biggest impact of Kennedy’s death . . . could be on his fellow Democrats who are divided over whether to create a public option to compete with private insurance, expand regional health insurance cooperatives, resist both because of concerns about spending and the impact on the private sector or hold out for a single-payer system that Obama himself doesn’t support,? McClatchy?s David Lightman and Margaret Talev write.

Maybe getting through this period of Kennedy nostalgia during recess is the best timing Republicans could imagine.

?When the veteran lawmaker died Tuesday night of brain cancer, the cause he long championed stood at a dangerous crossroads,? The Washington Post?s Shailagh Murray reports. ?With Congress’s August recess nearing its end, the window is closing for opponents of a health-care overhaul to further undercut its public support before lawmakers resume working on the bill. Meanwhile, Kennedy’s memorial services and burial are likely to draw more public attention to his political career, and to the issues he held dear — including universal health insurance, which he once called ?the cause of my life.? ?

Then there?s math: ?Democrats quickly tried to turn the death of Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy into a new spur for their stalled health-care overhaul effort. But the liberal icon’s passing could as well hobble the campaign, by depriving the majority party of a key vote at a critical juncture in the debate,? Neil King Jr. and Jonathan Weisman write in The Wall Street Journal.

When you have majorities like these, sometimes you get to make your own math.

?Governor Deval L. Patrick, breaking his silence on the future of Edward M. Kennedy?s Senate seat, yesterday embraced Kennedy?s request that the governor be given the power to appoint someone to the seat until voters can choose a permanent successor in a special election,? Frank Phillips reports in The Boston Globe. ?Patrick?s public statements add to growing momentum for Kennedy?s plea, which he made last week in a poignant letter to the governor and legislative leaders.?

?I’d like the Legislature to take up the bill quickly and get it to my desk and I will sign it,? Patrick told the Globe.

On succession: ?The race in the heavily Democratic state will be a five-month sprint that may pit some of the Bay State’s most prominent politicians and political families against each other.?

ABC?s George Stephanopoulos, on ?Good Morning America? Thursday: ?Vicki Kennedy has really ruled herself out.? Former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, D-Mass., ?hasn?t completely ruled out going for this seat.?

The last Kennedy? Per ABC?s Troy McMullen: ?The death of Edward Kennedy late Tuesday after a yearlong struggle with brain cancer, and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who died two weeks earlier after suffering a series of strokes in recent years, leaves just one remaining child born to Joseph and Rose Kennedy: Jean Kennedy Smith. The 81-year-old former ambassador to Ireland has long maintained a much lower profile than some other members of the extended Kennedy family. She skipped the funeral mass for her sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver to stay with her ailing brother, and has been seen in public very little in recent years.?

Kind of a ridiculous day to try to break through with this maneuver: ?Gov. Mark Sanford said Wednesday he won?t be ?railroaded? out of office, rejecting the latest request that he resign. Sanford spoke after Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer became the highest ranking Republican to ask the embattled GOP governor to quit,? The State?s Gina Smith and John O?Connor report.

Final cease-fire in the card-check wars? ?We have too many other things on our plate,? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, per Jennifer Robison of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

This sound familiar? ?Organizers of an Anchorage event that has been billing Sarah Palin for weeks as a star speaker were left scrambling Wednesday after learning that the former governor won’t be there for tonight’s event and claims to have never been asked,? Sean Cockerham and Erika Bolstad write for The Anchorage Daily News. ?It would be at least the fourth time in recent months that an anticipated Palin speech has fallen through after Palin and her camp disputed they had ever confirmed it.?

?This is the first we have ever heard of a speech,? said Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton.

The Kicker:

?The truth is he had expressed to his family that he did want to go, he did want to go to Heaven. . . . There was a certain peace there that was absolutely beautiful. It’s what life is all about and you would envy that kind of peace.? — Rev. Patrick Tarrant, to ABC affiliate WCVB-TV in Boston, on Sen. Kennedy?s final moments at his bedside.

?We will never see the likes of him again.? — Vice President Joe Biden, tearing up in remembrance.

For up-to-the-minute political updates check out The Note?s blog . . . all day every day:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/

The Note: A Bit Outside — Sotomayor Hearings Could Boost Obama Agenda

By RICK KLEIN

Not all strike zones are the same. Not everyone likes the same kinds of umpires. Most arguments are really about the next call.

And not all distractions are unwelcome interference.

Even before Judge Sonia Sotomayor sits down before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first time Monday morning, the confirmation fight has come full circle: It?s gone from agenda-slower to agenda-saver (and can always go back).

While the national attention turns to the Supreme Court, President Obama?s agenda gets a breather from the spotlight.

The upshot? Discussions over health care get to progress outside the 24-hour news cycle, for at least a few 24-hour periods. The stimulus, the economy, torture policies, a new fight with the CIA — it?s all background noise (or so the White House hopes) while confirmation hearings are underway.

Even the actual debate over confirmation isn?t quite what it seems: Both parties are looking beyond this fight for cues and signals about what this will all look like when there really is a confirmation battle in the era of Obama.

It begins with senators? opening statements at 10 am ET Monday, with the cable networks taking it live. It will all be streaming live at ABCNews.com, too, and via a new Facebook application.

Sotomayor will have Monday?s last word, and senators? questioning begins Tuesday.

New York?s senators will introduce her to lead off the session. Sotomayor?s guests inside the hearing room will include her mother, brother, stepfather, sister-in-law, a niece and two nephews — plus former FBI director Louis Freeh, Russell Laine of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, four fellow judges, and Reps. Nydia Velazquez and Jose Serrano, D-N.Y.

?Leading Republicans in the Senate signaled that they would emphasize questions about the judicial impartiality of Judge Sonia Sotomayor when her Supreme Court confirmation hearing begins on Monday, but senators from both parties seemed to accept that her nomination was unlikely to be derailed given the Democrats? majority,? Ron Nixon reports in The New York Times.

The teachable moment: ?I am really flabbergasted by the depth and consistency of her philosophical critique of the ideal of impartial justice,? said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

A fight that isn?t about this nomination as much as it might be about the next one: It?s ?the start of a new era of judicial confirmations,? USA Today?s Joan Biskupic writes. ?Senators in both parties will use her hearings not just to make points about their views of the law, but also to establish the tone for any future nominations by Obama.?

Getting this out of the way: ?I think she'll have an up-or-down vote,? said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

?Barring a poor performance at her confirmation hearing or a last-minute revelation shedding new light on her record, court watchers believe her confirmation is all but certain,? per ABC?s Ariane DeVogue and Jan Crawford Greenburg.

Sapping any drama? ?One surprise may come late in the day, when, according to sources, several Republican senators could announce their support for Sotomayor's nomination, effectively sealing her appointment to the court and making the only question how many votes she will receive,? Michael D. Shear reports in The Washington Post.

Expectations in an age of Democratic dominance: ?Opponents of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court suggested they would consider it a victory if more than half of the Senate's 40 Republicans voted against her in this week's confirmation hearing, as the GOP grapples with how aggressively to challenge the nominee,? Naftali Bendavid writes in The Wall Street Journal. ?Many Republicans said they viewed 23 ?no? votes as a benchmark, because that would be one more than Chief Justice John Roberts received in 2005 and would reflect a significant protest vote.?

Pictures of confidence: ?The White House released a photo of a casually dressed Obama flashing a full-grill grin during a call to wish the Bronx-raised judge good luck, while top Democratic boosters predicted most senators will give her a thumbs up,? James Gordon Meek reports in the New York Daily News.

The lessons we?ll learn: ?The historic week-long exchange inside Room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building is only partly about the fate of Sotomayor's nomination, as both sides predict she will win confirmation easily,? the Post?s Shear writes. ?The battle over President Obama's first court nominee is also likely to have broad and long-lasting political implications for the president and both political parties.?

He continues: ?Democrats are betting that an overly zealous assault on Sotomayor by Republican senators could anger Latinos and accelerate the shift of Hispanic voters away from the Republican Party, particularly in the South and West. Conservatives are hoping to use the Sotomayor hearings as a way to motivate their base if they can successfully portray her as an activist judge whose ?empathy? for certain groups guides her rulings more than court precedent or the written law.?

Playing for the next call: ?Republicans on the Senate committee plan to portray her as apart from the mainstream on racial issues – a strategy intended to send a message to President Obama in deciding future nominations: Think twice before picking a liberal,? Joseph Williams reports in The Boston Globe.

There?s the ?wise Latina? comments, the Ricci case, plus: ?They'll grill her on her interest in foreign law — in their eyes an un-American curiosity that could pollute U.S. laws. And they will fret over her Second Amendment decisions and imply she might want to take away some folks' guns,? writes Time?s Jay Newton-Small.

Making that argument: ?Empathy-based rulings, no matter how well-intentioned, imperil the legal system that has been so essential to our liberties and so fundamental to our way of life,? Sen. Sessions writes in a Boston Herald op-ed.

Latino groups are organizing ?fiestas? across the country to watch the hearings — and to be on the look-out for perceived slights. ?Latinos will be watching Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings ?like hawks? for evidence that senators on the Judiciary Committee are mistreating the Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge, or are mischaracterizing her record, leaders of Latino political, professional and advocacy groups tell ABC News,? per ABC?s Viviana Hurtado.

Pushback, at a star witness: ?Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor are quietly targeting the Connecticut firefighter who's at the center of Sotomayor's most controversial ruling,? McClatchy?s Michael Doyle and David Lightman report. ?On the eve of Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearing, her advocates have been urging journalists to scrutinize what one called the ?troubled and litigious work history? of firefighter Frank Ricci.?

How she prepped: ?We've spent most of the past two weeks in extensive mock hearings, so she gets a good feel for the questions and can hone her answers,” a White House official tells ABC?s Jake Tapper. ?Her style is down to earth and straightforward — not the sort of great speechmaker that [now-Supreme Court Chief Justice John] Roberts was, but a more pragmatic and 'just the facts' style that [former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day] O'Connor had when she was up.?

What else has to happen this week (as every week takes on more importance than the one that came before, when it comes to the president?s top agenda items).

Time to get control of the agenda again:

?President Obama, faced with dimming prospects that Congress will meet his August deadline to pass health care legislation, steps into the chaotic debate this week to push Congress to act and reassure Americans that they will not end up paying more for less. His leadership will have to go a long way,? Mimi Hall writes in USA Today.

?A series of setbacks has made the task of completing floor votes in both chambers virtually insurmountable, given the plodding pace of the Senate. The official line from the White House and the congressional leadership is it?s possible, but privately, there are a dwindling number of aides who would put money on it,? Politico?s Carrie Budoff Brown reports. ?And without a deal by August, the ripple effects could start to endanger the prospect of health care reform this year altogether — chief among them, the closer it gets to the 2010 midterm elections, the harder it will be to get members to make the tough political decisions needed to vote on a bill.?

Watching the middle: ?House Democratic leaders pushing a massive health care overhaul are facing a major drag from moderate Democrats soured by the political backlash to the climate change vote. Call it the hangover effect,? Roll Call?s Tory Newmyer and Steven T. Dennis report.

If it doesn?t do this . . . ?Although still publicly beating the drums for President Obama's healthcare overhaul, behind the scenes representatives of some of the biggest players in the game are beginning to express concern that it won't do enough about the major problem: runaway medical costs,? Noam N. Levey writes in the Los Angeles Times.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., on ?This Week with George Stephanopoulos?: ?There is no chance that it's going to be done by August.?

Perhaps the biggest drag on the bill?s prospects: ?It was a week when lawmakers said they keenly felt the absence of Edward M. Kennedy, whose battle with brain cancer has made it increasingly difficult for him to participate in a momentous debate on what has been his signature issue over 46 years in the Senate,? Lisa Wangsness and Susan Milligan write in The Boston Globe.

?Kennedy still holds weekly conference calls with the health committee. He speaks by phone from his home in Hyannis Port to his staff in Washington, to Democratic leaders, and to the White House, his colleagues say. His office is a hive of activity, and his top aides have been working almost nonstop for months on the health committee?s bill, now nearly finished,? they write. ?But Kennedy has not been in the Capitol since late April, and it is not clear when he will return.?

Next from the ideas factory? Bloomberg?s Al Hunt reports that John Podesta is flirting with a new ?consumption tax.? ?Podesta will soon unveil plans for a public forum in September laying out the daunting fiscal challenges, while trying to fashion a ?progressive? agenda to deal with them. Any serious effort will almost certainly include substantive spending cutbacks,? Hunt writes in his column. ?The centerpiece might be moving to a consumption tax, which is fraught with political and economic implications.?

From the spy wars: ?A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative terminated by Director Leon Panetta was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives, according to former intelligence officials familiar with the matter,? Siobhan Gorman writes in The Wall Street Journal. ?According to current and former government officials, the agency spent money on planning and possibly some training. It was acting on a 2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts. The initiative hadn't become fully operational at the time Mr. Panetta ended it.?

?It is unclear how wide an investigation lawmakers would like to see, but the latest controversy could fuel demands for an examination of the CIA's relationship with Congress during the Bush administration,? Julian E. Barnes writes in the Los Angeles Times.

?As if he didn't already have enough on his plate, President Obama will now likely have to deal with something he hoped to avoid: revisiting Bush-era scandals,? ABC?s Scott Mayerowitz reports. ?Former vice president [Dick Cheney] allegedly ordered CIA to withhold info from Congress. Attorney General Eric Holder is likely to push forward with a criminal investigation into the Bush administration's interrogation practices on suspected terrorists. . . . This comes despite the White House's desire to see the issue disappear.?

Where he wants to be going just now? ?President Obama is facing new pressure to reverse himself and to ramp up investigations into the Bush-era security programs, despite the political risks,? The New York Times? Scott Shane writes. He counts ?four fronts on which the intelligence apparatus is under siege. It is just the kind of distraction from Mr. Obama?s domestic priorities ? repairing the economy, revamping the health care system, and addressing the long-term problems of energy and climate ? that the White House wanted to avoid.?

?Former spies and some political leaders are saying that a lack of trust between Congress and the CIA is putting the county's security in jeopardy,? ABC?s John Hendren and Jonathan Karl report.

?It's one of the last nails in the CIA's coffin. It's finished. It's over. It's done,? said former Central Intelligence Agency operative Robert Baer, whose exploits in the Middle East was the model for George Clooney's role in ?Syriana.?

On the economy: President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers on Monday is releasing a report, ?Preparing the Workers of Today for the Jobs of Tomorrow,? that offers an overview of how the U.S. labor market is expected to grow over the next few years, per ABC?s Sunlen Miller.

?Jobs in the health-care and green- energy industries are growing at a faster pace than the rest of the economy and will help fuel the U.S. economic recovery, President Barack Obama?s Council of Economic Advisers will report today,? Bloomberg?s Ed Chen reports.

(Fundamentally speaking, is this the quote the president wanted out of his radio address? The stimulus ?has worked as intended,? the president declared.)

On the economy, the president heads out into the country: ?That?s the argument: Patience,? ABC?s Jake Tapper reported on ?Good Morning America.? ?Most of the money in the stimulus package will be spent in the next 12 months. So that?s the argument the president?s going to make. But they know they have a problem here.?

The urgency of now: ?There is not much time for the Administration to lose in pushing forward the Democratic agenda,? Nate Silver writes at FiveThirtyEight.com. ?The recent sluggishness in the recovery reduces, if not altogether eliminates, the possibility that the Democrats will have some kind of golden window of opportunity prior to the next midterms.?

The New York Times does the Palin tick-tock — and she takes the clock all the way back to the day she was chosen Sen. John McCain?s running mate: ?It began when we started really looking at the conditions that had so drastically changed on Aug. 29,? Palin, R-Alaska, said. ?The hordes of opposition researchers came up here digging for dirt for political reasons, making crap up.?

Did someone think she was going away?

The Washington Times? Ralph Z. Hallow: ?The former Republican vice-presidential nominee and heroine to much of the GOP's base said in an interview she views the electorate as embattled and fatigued by nonstop partisanship, and she is eager to campaign for Republicans, independents and even Democrats who share her values on limited government, strong defense and ?energy independence.? ?

?I will go around the country on behalf of candidates who believe in the right things, regardless of their party label or affiliation,? Palin said.

Friends like these: ?What is remarkable is the contempt Palin has engendered within her own party and the fact that so many of her GOP detractors are willing, even eager, to express it publicly — even with Palin an early front-runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination,? Mark Z. Barabak writes in the Los Angeles Times.

On the Monday schedule: Labor presidents of the National Labor Coordinating Committee meet with President Obama at the White House at 1:15 pm ET. On the agenda: health care, the economy, and (naturally) the Employee Free Choice Act.

New pushback Monday: a Website launched by the Workforce Fairness Institute — pitting ?big labor bosses v. big labor bosses.?

Surgery Monday for Dr. Jill Biden: ?Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, will have orthopedic surgery Monday to relieve shoulder pain,? per the AP. ?Mrs. Biden will have the outpatient procedure performed at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia, the White House said Sunday. The vice president will accompany her to the hospital, and the Bidens plan to spend the rest of Monday and Tuesday at their home in Delaware.?

Will Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., usher in a new show-biz-veterans? caucus? Not likely, says Variety?s Ted Johnson: ?His victory was viewed as so unlikely that it inspired talk of a ?Franken effect? — a flood of entertainment figures angling for a trip to Washington. But while stars like Alec Baldwin remain the subject of ?what-if?? speculation about a run, don't expect the floodgates to crash open. Far from inspiring more celebrities to enter the arena, Franken's example may actually give many pause.?

The Kicker:

?Those members who suffer from Senate envy could write a 700-page nongermane amendment.? — Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., in a legislative zing aimed at Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who is mulling a Senate run.

?It's easy for him to say that. That's what I would say to that.? — US Soccer Coach Bob Bradley, responding to President Obama?s assurance that the national team is ?not gonna give up a 2-goal lead.?

Today on the ?Top Line? political Webcast, live at noon ET: Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and ABC?s Jan Crawford Greenburg.

Follow The Note on Twitter: http://twitter.com/thenote

For up-to-the-minute political updates check out The Note?s blog . . . all day every day:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/

Bob Graham: Congressional Leaders Could Have Acted on Waterboarding

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, former Sen. Bob Graham told us that — as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also claims — he was never told about waterboarding in his role as chairman of the Senate intelligence committee in 2002.

But at the same time, Graham questioned Pelosi’s assertion that there was nothing congressional leaders could have done to stop waterboarding and other harsh techniques from being employed.

“There has been a history that in these covert action activities where there is a blowback from the members of Congress to the proposed activity that the administration has stopped, reconsidered, and not infrequently cancelled their original plans,” Graham, D-Fla., told me and ABC’s Jonathan Karl.

“Apparently [Pelosi] was also told either by statement or absence of statement [in September 2002] that these activities were not in fact being utilized. I think it’s the statement that, ‘This is what we are actually doing, and here are the people to whom it has been done,’ that would be such that would motivate you to go to the executive branch, to the president, and say, this is not in the American tradition.”

Graham was not at the briefing attended by Pelosi Sept. 4, 2002, though he was briefed just three weeks later.

The intelligence community’s report to Congress described Graham’s briefing in an identical fashion to the way it described Pelosi’s. Graham — like Pelosi — maintains that the report’s description of a briefing that included “the particular [enhanced interrogation techniques] that had been employed” is inaccurate.

“There was nothing exceptional about my briefing. It did not refer to waterboarding,” Graham told us.

“It did not refer to Abu Zubaydah and what interrogation techniques he’d been subjected [to]. It was a fairly bland brief. It was done under circumstances that were quite unusual and that was there were staff members in the briefing. Generally if the CIA is gonna brief on a highly contentious and clandestine activity such as torture, they would only do it to the leadership of the committee and the leadership of the Congress [and] would not include outsiders, other members of the committee, certainly not staff.”

Graham left the intelligence committee in January 2003, and did not receive any further briefings on the subject on enhanced interrogation techniques. Neither did Pelosi — though she acknowledged yesterday that she became aware that waterboarding was used after a top national-security aide, Michael Sheehy, was included in a CIA briefing in February 2003.

Graham said that, if he had been told about waterboarding, “I would have reacted with great disagreement with that practice which broke 200 years of American history. There are a limited number of things that a member of the leadership can do. You can’t talk to members of the committee, you can’t talk to staff, you can’t consult with experts. About the only thing you can do is go to the administration which has initiated this policy and urged them to reconsider.”

Asked if Pelosi should have registered stronger objections once she learned of waterboarding, Graham responded: “I think you ought to ask the question of the speaker. I don’t know enough of the circumstances. I was off the intelligence committee in January of [2003] so I had no further briefings on the subject.”

Pelosi said yesterday she did what little she could to stop the Bush administration’s actions, but was essentially powerless.

“Well, they didn’t tell us everything that they were doing. And the fact is that anything we would say doesn’t matter anyway. We had to change the majority in Congress,” said Pelosi, D-Calif.

Graham also wouldn’t go as far as Pelosi did when she accused the CIA of misleading her.

“I wouldn’t say they misled me, they just left that out of the briefing and I think it had to do with the fact that they did not feel the circumstances of the briefing were such that they could discuss information of that high level of classification,” he said.

But, like Pelosi, Graham linked the CIA briefings with the Bush administration’s push to go to war with Iraq in late 2002.

“Let me put this in a broader context. This [briefing] also happened to be the very week that the CIA submitted its national intelligence estimate on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” Graham said.

“That was what people were focused on and as we have come to learn, that was rife with misinformation or inadequate or lack of information which led us to an unnecessary war only to find that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This could’ve been part of that larger misinformation effort that surrounded Iraq.”

Click HERE to see our interview with Bob Graham.

Also today, we spoke with Jane Hamsher, of the liberal blog FireDogLake, about concerns brewing on President Obama’s left, after he’s shifted positions on a few key areas.

“I think that a lot of people are concerned because he made specific promises during the campaign that he’s now backtracking on,” Hamsher said. “I think that that’s just a consistent concern of anybody who votes for somebody, if they start changing their tune once they’re in office and it seems to be happening with some frequency as with the backtracking on the photographs as with the military commissions. And people are concerned. They’re wondering what’s up.”

Watch our full interview with Jane Hamsher HERE.

Mark Penn: No Edwards Could Have Meant ‘Different Outcome’

ABC News’ Kate Snow and Rick Klein report: What if John Edwards hadn’t run for president in 2008?

What if he had followed the hindsight-is-20-20 advice being offered now by his wife and chief strategist, and decided against another run for the White House because of the risk that his extra-marital affair would become public?

ABC News put that question to Mark Penn, who was Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief pollster and strategist during much of her 2008 campaign.

Penn acknowledged that all of this is unknowable. But he said that if Edwards backers had been up for grabs in Iowa and beyond, Clinton would have had a much better chance at defeating Barack Obama.

“No question in my mind, it would have been a very different race if he hadn’t run,” Penn said. “Most likely it would have been a two-way race and would have released a lot of voters who focused on demographics . . . voters who would later vote for Hillary Clinton.”

Edwards had placed second in the Iowa caucuses in 2004 and was strong there from the start. If he wasn’t a factor, that may have helped Clinton, Penn said.

“If he had come out and dropped out of the race particularly early, I think a lot of voters would have taken a good fresh look at Hillary Clinton,” he said. “Remember they supported Edwards ’cause they thought he was honest and trustworthy. And then they had questions about her being honest and trustworthy. And so if that equation had been reversed, she might well have picked up those votes.”

Clinton placed third in Iowa and then rebounded to win New Hampshire — only to fall to Obama in what turned out to be a far longer primary season than anyone anticipated.

Winning the first two states to vote would have placed any candidate “pretty much on the road and unstoppable,” Penn said.

“If [Edwards] would have dropped out there would have been a real contest for those votes,” he added. “And Obama might have won those votes. The history in the race further out was that Hillary was very successful getting Obama’s voters.

“If [Edwards] had dropped out early or not run at all, she would have had a much greater opportunity to get those voters. And if he dropped out explaining why he dropped out, she would have had an even bigger opportunity because people would have thought they were wrong about Edwards, and maybe they had been wrong about Hilary and might have opened a lot of voters to her.”

“It would have been a different race,” Penn said. “We will never know for sure . . . but it will be the woulda, coulda, shoulda of this race.”

Edwards placed second in Iowa but fizzled in subsequent primaries and caucuses. He dropped out of the race Jan. 30 and endorsed Obama in May — when Obama was considered the prohibitive frontrunner, but before Clinton dropped out of the race.

John Edwards publicly confessed the affair with Hunter in an interview with ABC in August of 2008.

The New York Daily News is reporting that Elizabeth Edwards, in her new book, writes that her husband should not have run for president, given the affair.

Joe Trippi, who was Edwards’ senior political adviser for the 2008 campaign, echoed that response in an e-mail to ABC News Thursday.

Politics Live: Could Inconsistencies in Burris’ Statements Put Him in Trouble?

“I responded to all questions that were asked of me by the impeachment committee in the time allotted,” Sen. Roland Burris said at a news conference Monday, insisting that he has always been truthful. “At no time did I ever make any inconsistent statement.”

In an affidavit released over the weekend, the senator — who is filling the seat left vacant by President Obama — admitted that former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich’s brother asked Burris for campaign fundraising before the senator was appointed. Burris did not mention that in his testimony to the impeachment committee in January.

Could these inconsistencies make Burris the next Illinois politician to be accused of perjury? Tune into Monday’s edition of Politics Live for more details and how Burris is being viewed by his peers in Congress.