The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt demonstrates yet again why he's a tool for the Bush administration yet again.

Of all the dumb and dishonest arguments in favor of telecom amnesty -- and there are many -- the dumbest and most dishonest is that it is unfair to subject telecoms to the "high costs" of defending against these lawsuits. It should come as no surprise, then, that this is the principal argument The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt advances today in his latest call for telecom amnesty:

As we have said, we do not believe that these companies should be held hostage to costly litigation in what is essentially a complaint about administration activities.

The poor telecoms that were complicit in breaking the law shouldn't be made to open up their pockets and explain their actions because Bush asked, but if your law-abiding family needs SCHIP because you don't have the money to save your kids well from tragedy ... that's too bad.