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Watergate hearings redux?

Carl Bernstein of All the President's Men fame concludes that it's high time Congress started acting as though the best interests of the country trump partisan fear. He wants Congressional hearings to begin at once.

In terms of imminent, meaningful action by the Congress, however, the question of whether the president should be impeached (or, less severely, censured) remains premature. More important, it is essential that the Senate vote—hopefully before the November elections, and with overwhelming support from both parties—to undertake a full investigation of the conduct of the presidency of George W. Bush, along the lines of the Senate Watergate Committee's investigation during the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.

How much evidence is there to justify such action?

Certainly enough to form a consensus around a national imperative: to learn what this president and his vice president knew and when they knew it; to determine what the Bush administration has done under the guise of national security; and to find out who did what, whether legal or illegal, unconstitutional or merely under the wire, in ignorance or incompetence or with good reason, while the administration barricaded itself behind the most Draconian secrecy and disingenuous information policies of the modern presidential era.

It's one heck of an indictment. Bernstein's not saying much that the blogosphere hasn't been saying for several years, but he's got a lot more credibility than a thousand bloggers have. Let's hope some Republican members of Congress read it.

(via Wolcott)