The Obama administration hasn't exactly heaped laurels on Wikileaks for leaking classified state cables. Joe Biden even called Wikileaks founder Julian Assange a "High-tech terrorist!" But Republican attack dog Rep. Darrell Issa wants Assange locked up now.

Issa is the incoming chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which means he'll be in charge of tying up the Obama administration for the next two years with petty investigations about ACORN, etc. Republicans are already pissed at Attorney General Eric Holder for failing to investigate the giant threat to national security that is the New Black Panther Party, and it seems they're going to try to spin Holder's failure to (so far) prosecute Wikileaks as yet another sign that the Obama administration is a bunch of wimps From the AFP:

Republican Representative Darrell Issa, who takes over as the chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform committee, said that "the world is laughing at this paper tiger we've become."

He blamed Holder for failing to bring criminal charges against Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, which has published hundreds of thousands of secret US diplomatic and military cables.

"He's hurting this administration. If you're hurting the administration, either stop hurting the administration, or leave," Issa told Fox News Sunday.

Except bringing criminal charges requires a crime having been committed. Basically, the only way Julian Assange could be prosecuted for the cablegate leak without tossing the First Amendment and all mainstream media outlets who also reported the cables into a giant bonfire, kristallnacht-style, is with a conspiracy case—which they are trying to build. The government would have to prove that Assange actively helped Private Bradley Manning, the alleged leaker, illegally download the 250,000 classified diplomatic cables. So far, there's no real evidence of this.

But, you know, maybe we could just lock Assange up under charges of criminally embarrassing the U.S.?

[Image of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange via AP}