You know, for a party out of power, the Democrats sure seem to have a lot of power

According to lying fink Matt Drudge,

Sources tell Drudge that early this afternoon House Speaker Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Frist will announce a bicameral investigation into the leak of classified information to the WASHINGTON POST regarding the “black sites” where high value al Qaeda terrorists are being held and interrogated.

Yeah, it's time for another one of my posts about the different ways the Republican and Democratic blogs see the world. Most of the Democratic blogs (that I have read) response to this is to note two things, with some irony.

One, that Republicans seem just fine with leaks when it serves their agenda. And two, that they're more concerned with finding out who told anyone that we're torturing people than they are with the fact that WE'RE TORTURING PEOPLE.

The Republican blog reaction, however, is something else entirely. The Media Blog on National Review writes:

This is what Joe Wilson and the Democrats and all the major newspaper editorial boards that called for an investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity have wrought — a crackdown on classified information leaked to the press, akin to a de facto Official Secrets Act.

Oh. So it's our fault. Joe Wilson shouldn't have wanted to know who ruined his wife's career, and quite possibly endangered her life and those of her fellow agents. Democrats shouldn't have wanted to know whether a Republican White House lied the country into a war.

Newspaper editorial boards shouldn't have wanted to know any of that either. In fact, nobody should. NEVER, EVER, QUESTION US!

Granted, that last line is just implied in MBoNR's post. Fortunately, our old friend, the gratuitously sexist protein wisdom, makes it explicit when he says:

Republicans to the intelligence establishment: "Who's your daddy NOW, bitches?"

Leaks from the CIA or the State Department meant to damage Bush’s foreign policy should be treated with no less a degree of seriousness as those coming from White House aides and staffers.

And once you set the bar so low, as was the case with the Libby indictments, you are bound to find yourself in a war over who controls the narrative by way of controlling how information is disseminated to the press.

So now I'm coming to what I meant by the headline up top there. Has anyone ever noticed that for a party that controls the White House, the Senate, and the Congress, conservative Republicans sure seem to able to find a reason to blame Democrats when things go wrong?

Oh, and one more thing. As firedoglake reports:

CNN is reporting that Trent Lott says the leak on the black ops CIA detention and torture facilities came from....erm...a GOP Senator.

CNN confirming that it may have been Republican Senator and perhaps Republican staffers as well. Cheney was on Hill last Tuesday -- "everything in the story was said by Cheney" in the meeting. Blitzer calling it a "bombshell" story -- that the GOP may be investigating themselves. Lott saying that it could be an ethics investigation, "we can't keep our mouths shut" according to Lott. Reporting that Lott walked into a roomful of reporters and made the statements and left reporters "stunned."

Now besides enjoying the fact that the Republican bloggers were so quick to blame "us," when it was "them", this leaves me thinking. I grant that this is a pet theory of mine. I'm not quite sure why I want to believe it.

But I think there are Republicans who are-finally-realizing that people like Dick Cheney and Trent Lott are killing their party. Not to mention uh, you know. This doesn't get them any points. As I've said before, the people who get points are those who stood up and told the truth when it was unpopular.

But it does give me at least a small glimmer of hope that we as a country will pass through this.

ETA: Laura has a nice update on this.

Word on the Hill is a name of a Senator who voted against McCain's anti-torture amendment. How fast do you expect this investigation is going to end? More from the Post:

...Lawmakers from both parties immediately expressed misgivings about the request. ... Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said: "Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. The real story is those jails." ...

That sound you hear is a whooole lot of Republicans saying "oopsie." And don't you just know that they thought this was gonna be their backlash for the Dems finding their balls a week ago today?

I love it, I love it, I love it.