Sunday, March 18, 2007

Investigation or Legislation?

The main political topic this week were emails that suggested the firing of 8 Federal Prosecutors in the Bush DOJ was motivated by politics instead of performance (yeah, I know, shocking).

Washington Insider and professional lapdog David Broder wrote the following in his latest column:
    Congress's Oversight Offensive
    By David S. Broder
    Sunday, March 18, 2007; Page B07
    Ten weeks into the new Congress, it is clear that revelation, not legislation, is going to be its real product.
      While President Bush threatens to use his veto pen to stop some bills and Senate Republicans block other measures from even reaching his desk, no force in Washington can halt the Democrats' investigative juggernaut from uncovering the secrets inside this administration.

    As always with all members of the gang of 500, Broder manages to state that this is a bad thing for the Democrats:

        You have to feel a twinge of sympathy now for the Bush appointees who suddenly find unsympathetic Democratic chairmen such as Henry Waxman, John Conyers, Patrick Leahy and Carl Levin investigating their cases...
        ...Accountability is certainly important, but Democrats must know that people were really voting for action on Iraq, health care, immigration, energy and a few other problems. Investigations are useful, but only legislation on big issues changes lives.
      Mind you, a month ago on Feb 16th I had posted a comment about Broder writing that Bush was alleged "poised for a comeback":


      One month latter the President, far from "regaining his footing" has slipped and fell down so badly even Spidermans super power could not help him. So Clueless Lapdogs like Broder must shift to a new script, all these investigations will somehow hurt the Democrats.

      I would be beating a dead horse if I repeated the number of times that the main stream media had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table and be forced to report the news. But pre$$titution aside, we may wish to consider Broders question about whether these investigations hurt the D's. Should the focus be on legislation?

      I can say without qualification, not only no but Hell No. The master blogger Digby writes:
        Brownstein is a good reporter...but today he betrayed a little bit of that beltway reflexive dismissiveness of anything "the left" finds important. He said that Waxman needed to pick his battles better because playing to the liberal blogosphere with hearings like this will create the same problems for Democrats that Republicans found themselves in when they went after Clinton. Setting aside the fact that the Republicans' "problems" resulted in them holding all three branches of government for six years, this sounds to me like one of those tired GOP talking points that reporters love to parrot because it distances them from the hippies.
      Six years Mr. Broder. And this was from investigations that were 100% Bullsh*t. How many years will the R's be out of power when the D's start to investigate and uncover actual crimes? 10? 20?

      Of course if you are a partisan who "drinks the kool aid", maybe you truly believe the Bush Administration committed no crimes. In that case however, I am not the one you need to convince.

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