How to handle error

Democrats and liberals have come under attack to some degree for encouraging and promoting various investigations that may politically damage this administration, on the grounds that doing so will hurt the nation. I've seen complaints to that affect with regards to Abu Ghraib and to the Fitzgerald investigation into Plamegate. Apparently the conservative view is that the actions themselves, torture of prisoners or outing covert agents, are not too important, it is revealing that they happened that does the damage.

Well the liberal position is the opposite. The grave danger to our troops in the field has been done because of the torture itself and because an undercover agent was exposed. The way to minimize and control that damage, and to prevent further such damaging incidences in the future is to expose the culprits and make sure that they face justice for their actions. Covering up the misdeeds does nothing to reduce the damage, but it does make it more likely that such misdeeds will occur again.