Deep Thought: Col. Nathan Jessup Edition

As I think back on the movie "A Few Good Men" there was a moment when Tom Cruise's character asked a logic question that went to the heart of his defense of the two marines and against the cover story pushed by Colonel Nathan Jessup. After their platoon was told not to touch Private Santiago supposedly there was another meeting where the two defendents were told specifically not to give him a code red. Tom Cruise established the importance of Marines following orders first and then asked the question that defied the logic of the second meeting. If the soldiers had already been told not to touch Santiago and Marines follow orders "or people die", why then would there ever even need to be a second meeting advising them against beating Santiago's ass?

I have similar thoughts about the current debate amongst Villagers over whether or not the CIA should have briefed Congress on some secret program that they were kept in the dark about for over 8 years. Now first of all let me say yet again that I think this story is much ado about nothing, not because it isn't important, but because there is a lot of misinformation being tossed around. And I think its all just to take attention away from the recent IG report that detailed the humongous (and illegal) warrantless wiretapping program that was operating during the Bush administration.

However even if this is really a big story, one thing should be readily apparent. And that is that OBVIOUSLY the CIA broke the law in not informing Congress. I don't care that anonymous Republicans continue to try to make it seem like the program never got started or that it was shut down a long time ago. What it boils down to is this, it has been well established that Dick Cheney specifically told the CIA NOT to brief Congress. There would be no reason on earth for him to do that unless he himself believed that they SHOULD be briefing Congress on the program. Why would the guy tell them not to brief Congress if there wasn't at least somebody pushing to brief them and or if the facts of the program wasn't making a compelling case for the need to brief them?

Now could you mainstream media types please stop insulting our intelligence and accept it as a given that the CIA broke the law, even though obviously it was at the direction of Dick Cheney?

Thanks in advance.