Public left holding the bag while Congress plays dumb.

Both stories received the Pulitzer Prize. Both stories were decried by the Bush White House as irresponsible and even unpatriotic for revealing sensitive government programs whose exposure, it said, would compromise the government’s ability to fight terrorism. And both stories prompted expressions of concern about the policies from some members of Congress, giving rise to the expectation that, as in the past, the revelations of controversial and possibly illegal government programs would lead to congressional investigations and a public accounting.

But that didn’t happen.

Well worth the time to read the whole work.