If nothing else, Jeffrey Smith's story in the Washington Post proves that Mark Twain's critique of congressional investigations still holds: "One does not blindfold one's self in order to investigate an object." So it is in the matter of PMA Group, the lobbying group that was a top donor to members of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee who were top earmarkers for PMA Group's clients.

The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct--better known as the House Ethics Committee--looked at the hundreds of thousands of dollars that PMA Group and its clients contributed to lawmakers and the ...