The reaction by Democrats was audacious, borrowing from the Nixon White House's approach to publication of the Pentagon Papers three decades ago. Just as the Republicans then deflected attention from disclosures about the Vietnam War revelation by attacking the leakers and journalists, the assault on the Judiciary Committee e-mail leak obscured the disclosures.
The difference this time was that Republican senators agreed that the real scandal was the leak, not the leaked material. Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, displaying greater indignation than he ever did about the filibusters, called himself "mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."
Hatch then accused an unnamed former Judiciary Committee staffer -- clearly fingering Miranda, who on Feb. 5, 2003, left Hatch's staff and joined Frist's. Hatch in November did not reveal that Miranda had just volunteered to Republican-appointed Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle that the e-mails had become known to Republicans through a computer glitch.
Frist at that time did not want to antagonize Senate Democrats needed to pass the super-expensive Medicare bill against no-votes by nine Republican senators. Even after that measure passed, however, Frist did not address what was revealed in the e-mails. Nor did he come to the defense of his aide Miranda, who was treated shabbily by both Frist and Hatch.
"No unauthorized hacking was involved," Miranda said in his departure statement. "I considered and studied the propriety of reading these documents. I knew that in legal ethics there is no absolute prohibition on reading opposition documents inadvertently disclosed." On the contrary, he concluded, "a prohibition on the reading of such documents" would violate the Code of Ethics of Government Service.
Manny Miranda is a man of principle who was betrayed by his bosses in the interests of maintaining an artificial comity with their Democratic colleagues. Now they must decide what to do with those unread e-mails hidden in the safe of the sergeant at arms.