Wanted: Congressional Curiosity

Robert Scheer has been watching the Libby trial with a slightly off-focus set of spectacles: it’s not that Libby lied about his knowledge of Plame that’s important but the deliberate lying to Congress about the need for war by the office of the Vice President — at least.

At length, Martin explained how she, Libby and Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley worked late into the night writing a statement to be issued by George Tenet in 2004 in which the CIA boss would take blame for the bogus claim in Bush’s State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking nuclear material in Africa. After ‘delicate’ talks, Tenet agreed to say the CIA ‘approved’ the claim and ‘I am responsible’—but even that disappointed Martin, who had wanted Tenet to say that ‘we did not express any doubts about Niger.’ ” Tenet later was awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Certainly this deliberate corruption of the integrity of the CIA, the nation’s premier source of national security information, rises to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” which the Constitution holds out as the standard for impeachment.

Scheer: Impeachment

I don’t think Congress needs necessarily to start out with Impeachment hearings but some nice loud sniffing at the smell by several committees might be nice; hearings; testimony. Surround the guy with facts before opening fire….