Media Follows The Soccer Ball

Lynn Woolsey just released a statement that is so eminently sensible I'm sure nobody will even bother to read it:

"The interrogation policies undertaken and authorized by President Bush and those in his administration have trampled on the most fundamental values of our nation. As a country, we have a responsibility to investigate which administration officials authorized the use of torture, hold those responsible accountable, and then move forward.

"These were policies developed, undertaken, and executed by members of the Bush administration. They should be the ones answering the questions.

"Attempts to derail this process by creating a smokescreen around which Members of Congress were told what, and when, ignores the profound responsibility that those of us in Congress have to get to the bottom of the Bush administration’s detainee policy."

I've said it a thousand times. Who cares who was briefed and when? I assume the Republicans are trying some game of chicken to force the Democrats to deep-six any investigations due to their culpability. Well, Nancy Pelosi called for an independent commission today. So the bluff has been called.

Now, for their next trick, conservatives can justify waterboarding prisoners to get them to make false confessions about links between Iraq and Al Qaeda.