Dig Deeper Texas

TIME.com: The Scariest Guy in Town — Dec. 4, 2006 — Page 1:

As the new chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, Waxman will have free rein to investigate, as he puts it, “everything that the government is involved with.” And the funny thing is, Waxman can thank the Republicans for the unique set of levers he will hold. Under a rules change they put through in the days when they used the panel to make Bill Clinton’s life miserable, the leader of Government Reform is the only chairman who can issue subpoenas without a committee vote. Then Chairman Dan Burton–who famously re-enacted the suicide of Clinton deputy White House counsel Vince Foster by shooting at what he called a “head-like thing” (later widely reported to be a melon) in his backyard–issued 1,089 such unilateral subpoenas in six years. Since a Republican entered the White House, the G.O.P. Congress has been far less enthusiastic in its oversight. Waxman likes to point out that the House took 140 hours of sworn testimony to get to the bottom of whether Clinton had misused the White House Christmas-card list for political purposes, but only 12 hours on prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.

This is a bonus that comes out the midterms. I really like Henry Waxman and I think he will do a fine job as the Government Reform Committee. Funny, I had forgotten we had one of these. It has been so quiet for the last 6 years and even when the oversight committee did make the news it wasn’t to really oversee as much as to just rubberstamp whatever Bush and Co. was doing that the public found offensive. 12 hours for Abu Ghraib vs 140 about a Christmas card list. That was a really good job of oversight there. I have to say I find the end of this article hilarious.

While Waxman promises what he calls oversight, the Republicans say it’ll be more like a witch hunt, and the Administration is promising to fight him all the way to the Supreme Court to protect itself against what it expects to be a frontal assault on Executive power. Waxman says the G.O.P. should take comfort in the fact that he has historical perspective. “I’ve seen a good example of overreaching,” he says, referring to the committee’s treatment of Clinton. “It’s not the way to behave.”

The administration and GOP are being a bit hypocritical here. Do you think they might be projecting their actions onto others. They know they couldn’t help but use their majority to start witch hunts and maybe it is just beyond their little reptilian brains that while them having absolute power corrupted them absolutely that the dems don’t have absolute power and might not be so easily corrupted. Not to mention Henry Waxman doesn’t have to go on any type of witch hunt since the Administration has so kindly done their dirty deeds in full view of the public.

I am completely in the dark about what happens next. Yes, I know that President Bush and Vice President Cheney could be impeached but will the Democrats do that? My opinion is that they probably won’t but I would suppose that would depend on what the administration does now.

I am sure the next two years are going to be interesting to watch. It is funny to see them crying foul before anything has been done. It is funnier to see them crying foul about things they were exceptionally guilty of themselves. I am going to take particular glee in bringing their words back to haunt them when they do these things.
I don’t expect the Democratic Majority to act the way the Republicans have for so many years but that remains to be seen. There is a part of me that would love to see the dems do it because the GOP’s behavior over the last 12 years has been outrageous but the better part of me says it is time to take the country back from that kind of politics and move forward into a better future. We aren’t in Kansas anymore the “Great Uniter” ended up being a great divider and our country is more splintered than ever and its time to repair that rift.

Filed under: Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Government Reform Committee, Henry Waxman, democrat, dirty politics, dishonesty, politics, republican, rhetoric