Let the investigations begin

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Congress under the Democrats will likely (and hopefully) be an investigative body as much as a legislative one. The legislative agenda is impressive — a minimum wage increase, stem-cell research funding, lobbying reform, etc. — but we’ve been waiting a long time for the truth about the abuses of the Bush Administration to come out once and for all. And in the Senate, a particularly egregious area of abuse is about to be exposed:

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who will chair the Senate Judiciary Committee next year, asked the Justice Department to release two newly acknowledged documents, which set U.S. policy on how terrorism suspects are detained and interrogated.

The CIA recently acknowledged the existence of the documents in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The first is a directive President Bush signed giving the CIA authority to establish detention facilities outside the United States and outlining interrogation methods that may be used against detainees.

The second is a 2002 memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to the CIA’s general counsel regarding interrogation methods that the spy agency may use against al-Qaeda leaders.

I wonder what choice words Cheney has for Leahy now. (Or what he’ll say when the Democrats venture to uncover the truth about Halliburton.)

As they say, what goes around...