After an uncharacteristic delay during which even some of the most jaded among us entertained a small hope of salvation, the leaders of our once-fine country have finally gotten around to seeing to it that there will be no consequences for the Bush administration over their Secret Illegal Domestic Spying Program.

Yesterday Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R - KS) announced that he had made an agreement with the White House to “fix” the illegal wiretapping program.

With at least one confirmed maiming under his belt, Vice-President Dick Cheney is more fearsome than ever and has been holding private meetings with Republican lawmakers where it is said he has been urging them to “not fucking fuck with [him].”

Senator Roberts’ current stance:

“I believe that such an investigation at this point … would be detrimental to this highly classified program and efforts to reach some accommodation with the administration,” Roberts said.

Right, right. We don’t want to investigate blatantly illegal activities for fear of interfering with those activities in the future. And we don’t want to jeopardize any chance we might have to come to an agreement with the people who committed these crimes, because that would be fucked up. What were we thinking? I can’t believe we almost investigated.

Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, Republicans are arguing for a “more limited scope” to their own investigation, arguing that their tiny, black, evil hearts compel them to do so.

No one is saying exactly what kind of a “fix” these unbelievable pricks have in mind, but it’s likely to be something along the lines of a proposal from Senator Mike DeWine (R - OH), which would basically amend the law the Administration broke (FISA) so that they didn’t break it, retroactively. The Bush administration has made clear what their interpretation of the law is (that it doesn’t apply to them, nor does any other law), and DeWine just wants to codify that understanding into the law itself. Of course, the administration won’t have to be bothered with that either, since they don’t have to follow the laws. But it will be the law that says that they don’t have to follow it. So they won’t follow it, if they don’t want to, but not because the law said so, but because they feel like it, since, you know, you’re not the boss of them.

Bye-bye, shred of hope.