The Worthless Commission

Hasn't even met yet.

But then, what difference will it make?

We're talking about the panel to investigate the WMD fiasco.

A TIME examination of the panel members' backgrounds reveals a web of sticky connections to the Bush team and, in one case, an alleged lack of investigative curiosity. The nine-member panel is co-chaired by a Democrat, former Senator Charles Robb, and includes at least one proven maverick, Senator John McCain, who was put there, according to an official, to provide "instant credibility." But retired U.S. appellate court Judge Laurence Silberman, the panel co-chair, is a Nixon-era friend of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's and Vice President Dick Cheney's. Panel member Henry Rowen, a Hoover Institution scholar and former Rand Corp. president, worked under Cheney at the Pentagon during the first Gulf War. In September 1990, with Cheney's backing, Rowen cooked up Operation Scorpion, a secret plan to invade Iraq from the west, go all the way to Baghdad and topple Saddam. (The plan went nowhere.) Another panel member, former CIA deputy director William Studeman, now with Northrop Grumman, contributed $250 to candidate Bush's campaign in 2000. His wife gave the Bush re-election committee $500 just a week before her husband was named to the panel last month.

...Questions of objectivity won't be resolved until the panel completes its task. Five weeks after being appointed, the group has not met, and it is unclear when it will.

Threre's more. But even that doesn't matter, does it? Because Bush appointed them, and they were specifically charged with finding out why the CIA gave the White House bad information and how that can be avoided in the future. Which first of all, presumes a fact that has simply not been determined and completely avoids any investigation into the White House's culpability.

The whole thing is a farce.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.