Would a torture investigation be Dick Cheney's final revenge?

Others know just as little of what they do as Pete Hoekstra, the House intelligence committee's ranking member, but it's Hoekstra who has reaped the most attention among the Congressional ranks for saying things like this, to the Politico:

"If someone is going to schedule hearings [on the Bush administration's "enhanced interrogation" policies], I believe that the first witness should be Nancy Pelosi. Clearly, she was involved in policy formulation."

Aside from committing politics by snark, a rather common Republican phenomenon, Hoekstra's first point seems entirely admissible: Having been briefed as a minority-party committee member on what the Bush administration was up to in 2002, it makes perfect sense for now-Speaker Pelosi to be called as an early witness.

But that second point, the one of such non-sequitur extravagance -- "Clearly, she was involved in policy formulation"? Well, that's just plain bewildering, even in view of its nakedly political motivation. To equate a mere briefing with formulation, or insist that the latter necessarily flows from the former, is a logical fallacy too far, even for Republicans.

Needless to say, I'm neither the first to point this out nor will I be the last. Consequently it broadly renders the likes of the GOP's Pete Hoekstras rather silly, which really isn't something they can afford much more of these days.

Nonetheless they did, and still do, have a "goal," as the Politico reports, although it appears to reflect the now-standard Republican m.o. of thinking only one move ahead at all times, in all cases. And that goal "is to dissuade Democrats from pursuing an inquiry that could lead to the prosecution of Bush administration officials by making it clear to Democrats that Pelosi and other lawmakers would have to testify, too" [emphasis mine]. Dissuasion, that is, through intimidation.

Naturally, the GOP's bogeywoman of Nancy Pelosi seems ideal: "Republicans say new revelations about a CIA briefing Pelosi received in 2002 have given them their best shot yet at blocking a sprawling probe into Bush administration interrogation techniques."

That strategy, however, could very well backfire -- and the more strenuously the GOP pushes it, the more certain it becomes to accomplish just that: to blow up in their face.

In short, to protect her reputation Pelosi may move from strongly encouraging a "sprawling probe" to downright insisting on one. Sure, she'll say, I'd be happy to testify; but in that event let's haul everybody in, under oath, and a good 99 percent of those "everybodies" will be -- you got it -- Republicans.

Now there's no question that Ms. Pelosi's assorted and meandering public statements on the briefing issue have been shaky, at best. Yet I won't bother relating the voluminous and still-growing he-said-she-said accounts of this issue -- which would remain just that after an investigation -- because if I did, I'd still wind up making this basic point: Pelosi's "ignorance" defense may be dismayingly un-credible, but it's also utterly irrelevant.

Once again it's a Republican who, rather unwittingly, not only makes a good case for investigation, but an excellent case regarding ultimate responsibility. I give you Sen. Lamar Alexander:

"If it's fair game to second-guess the lawyers in the Justice Department who were doing their job for doing a legal opinion that was asked for, then it's fair game to investigate the intelligence officers who asked for the opinion, the Bush administration officials who approved the interrogation techniques, the members of Congress who might have known about it and the Clinton administration officials who knew about it, including Eric Holder, who was deputy attorney general."

Except perhaps for that last category -- a personnel inclusion amateurishly intended to intimidate Holder -- Sen. Alexander makes a convincing argument for the "sprawling" nature of an investigation. Yet what occurred was such a vast muddle -- as Alexander himself implies -- that ultimate responsibility can, ultimately, only be nailed from the top down, not the bottom up: to wit, the Bush administration officials who approved the interrogation techniques.

And as an investigative committee works its way up, it ultimately, as Dick Cheney so selflessly conceded on "Face the Nation," will land on the singular desk of George W. Bush, who "basically authorized" the stunningly illegal torture program. George may have again sought the solace of drink upon hearing that one.

Furthermore, Mr. Cheney said he may even be willing to testify to that -- in fact all of it -- under oath. To which one can only speculate that hell hath no fury like a Scooter-loving vice president scorned.