Welcome aboard

What do you suppose went into yesterday's announcement that the Justice Department had launched a criminal investigation into the CIA's destruction of videotapes said to show harsh interrogation of terror suspects? It took weeks for Attorney General Michael Mukasey to determine that a crime might have been committed in the destruction of hundreds of hours of tapes that were withheld from the Sept. 11 Commission and from judges who requested them for criminal cases, even though that's more than obvious. Come on, the federal government keeps everything and there are hundreds of federal buildings in cities all over the country because it needs places to put things. Do we really think it's just a coincidence that evidence of illegal conduct is the one thing that gets destroyed? It's more than two years since the tapes were destroyed with the apparent knowledge of White House insiders. What kind of calculation or arrangement did Mukasey have to make here? He's the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, isn't he? Maybe the Bush administration is just circling the proverbial wagons, trying to keep its remaining public servants out of prison for one more year? We can only hope the Congressional investigations will be more believable, but it's only a faint hope.