John Nichols: "Malfeasance in Office" (The Nation)

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BLOG | Posted 03/17/2007 @ 8:15pm
"Malfeasance in Office"
John Nichols


Henry Waxman knows a thing or two about the Constitution, and the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee displayed that knowledge at the opening of Friday's extraordinary morning of testimony by outed CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson.

While appropriate attention will be paid to the remarks by the woman whose identity was exposed in a pattern of leaks that appears to have been coordinated by Vice President Dick Cheney's office, what Waxman said at the opening of the hearing sent the essential message.

"It's not our job to determine criminal culpability," the congressman said of the committee he heads, "but it is out job to determine what went wrong and insist on accountability."

The founders established parallel tracks for dealing with government wrongdoing.

A judicial process has already begun to hold members of the administration to account for violating laws protecting the identity of Central Intelligence Agency operatives by outing Plame in an apparent attempt to harm her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson. Wilson had earned the administration's wrath by revealing evidence of manipulation of intelligence by an administration that was attempted to convince Congress to authorize an attack on Iraq. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15