Sins of commission. (Comment).

THE APPOINTMENT OF HENRY Kissinger to chair a commission on the September 11 attacks has provoked widespread clucking. As Maureen Dowd aptly put it, Henry Kissinger isn't whom you hire to get to the bottom of something. "If you want to keep others from getting to the bottom of something, you appoint Henry Kissinger," she wrote.

In general, the right has been far more nimble than the liberal left at the use of commissions. The right has made ideological headway by setting up pseudo-official panels of experts to publicize and lobby for predetermined conclusions. One ...

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