I tried posting this as a comment on the "lies offensive", but I kept getting a "50 character max" response.
First, I'd like to note that David Brooks on the Jim Lehrer News Hour spread the same B.S about the inquiry that Armando is reporting Bill Kristol is now peddling.
Yes Minister was a British T.V show that aired in the late 1970's early 1980's that featured an largely incompetent Minister of Administrative Affairs, James Hacker, who is generally dominated by his civil service deputy (actually master).
In one episode, the Minister is acting in his role as a constituency M.P, trying to get the approval of the land currently occupied by a 3rd rate art musuem, in order to raise money for the local struggling soccer team. The deputy, horrified at the thought of art money being used to subsidize sports asks the minister to appoint an inquiry to examine the sale. The minister, oblivious to the danger, agrees.
He only realizes what he has gotten himself into when he reads the proposed terms of the inquiry. In the book of the T.V show, the diary of James Hacker he says "Regressing 30 years, I yelled to my assistant "this isn't fair!, how can he control the inquiry like this?" His assistant, far wiser politically than the minister, laughs and says "Oh really minister, the inquiry is completely independent. But, the inquiry is like a train and the terms of the inquiry are the tracks. Once the tracks are in place, the train will follow the way they go."