“The professionals involved in that program were very, very cautious, very careful — wouldn’t do anything without making certain it was authorized and that it was legal,” Cheney told ABC News last December. “And any suggestion to the contrary is just wrong. Did it produce the desired results? I think it did.”

Yet, this week, as the report was slowly processed by reporters and analysts, it became increasingly clear that the program did not produce “the desired results.

As the Obama administration and Democrats wrangled over the timing, shape and cost of health care overhaul efforts during the first half of the year, more than half the $1.1 million in campaign contributions the Democratic Party's Blue Dog Coalition received came from the pharmaceutical, health care and health insurance industries, according to watchdog organizations.

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Cheney's AEI speech was essentially a remix of the arguments that he had made in the run-up to the Iraq war: that if only ordinary American citizens had seen the top secret information he had access to, they would be even more alarmed than he was. And the Bush administration had only prudently taken every measure necessary to keep Americans safe.

Hiding behind a wall of classification has been a quintessential Cheney trope. But that wall just crumbled.

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"If they follow the law they have no choice," Nadler said in an interview this past weekend.

Nadler said that a special prosecutor should handle the task, because some of the likely subjects of such an investigation worked in the Justice Department. "There is an inherent conflict interest," said Nadler," which is why you must appoint a special prosecutor. But, again, you have no choice because that's the law."

TVNL Comment: As has been the case for years, "investigations", regarless of what crimes they uncover, do not lead to procedution. They serve as a tool to shut the people up as to say "see, we are addressing the issue."

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