Can this administration set the bar any lower? So desperate to have it’s “high profile” hero, a name everyone knew, a recruiters dream come true, Pat Tillman and within hours after he died, the Army, Pentagon and the Administration were doing some serious CYA because the inconvenient truth was that Tillman was killed by friendly fire. That truth was going to hurt the recruiting and instantly the “politics” of Tillman’s death was more important than the truth to the family. Every time another peel of the onion is exposed on the “Big House”, it gets uglier. This American is horrified at what damage can be done to a county that has defining and refining its democracy for over 200 years…be so crippled in a short 6 years.

Within hours of Pat Tillman’s death, the Army went into information-lockdown mode, cutting off phone and Internet connections at a base in Afghanistan, posting guards on a wounded platoon mate, and ordering a sergeant to burn Tillman’s uniform.

    New investigative documents reviewed by The Associated Press describe how the military sealed off information about Tillman’s death from all but a small ring of soldiers. Officers quietly passed their suspicion of friendly fire up the chain to the highest ranks of the military, but the truth did not reach Tillman’s family for five weeks.

    The clampdown, and the misinformation issued by the military, lie at the heart of a burgeoning congressional investigation.

    ”We want to find out how this happened,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House oversight committee, which has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday. “Was it the result of incompetence, miscommunication or a deliberate strategy?”

    It is also a central issue as the Army weighs punishments against nine officers, including four generals, faulted in the latest Pentagon report on the case of the NFL star-turned-soldier. Military officials said those recommendations could come in the next several weeks.

    It is well known by now that the circumstances of Tillman’s April 22, 2004, death were kept from his family and the American public; the Army maintained he was cut down by enemy bullets in an ambush, even though many soldiers knew he was mistakenly killed by his own comrades. The nearly 1,100 pages of documents released last month at the conclusion of the Army Criminal Investigation Command’s probe reveal the mechanics of how the Army contained the information.

    For example, the day after Tillman died, Spc. Jade Lane lay in a hospital bed in Afghanistan, recovering from gunshot wounds inflicted by the same fellow Rangers who had shot at Tillman. Amid his shock and grief, Lane noticed guards were posted on him.