My Best Vote
by digby
The Democratic congressman who will investigate the Bush administration’s running of the government says there are so many areas of possible wrongdoing, his biggest problem will be deciding which ones to pursue.
There’s the response to Hurricane Katrina, government contracting in Iraq and on homeland security, political interference in regulatory decisions by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration, and allegations of war profiteering, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., told the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.
“I’m going to have an interesting time because the Government Reform Committee has jurisdiction over everything,” Waxman said Friday, three days after his party’s capture of Congress put him in line to chair the panel. “The most difficult thing will be to pick and choose.”
[…]
Subpoenas would be used only as a last result, Waxman said, taking a jab at a previous committee chairman, GOP Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, who led the committee during part of the Clinton administration.
“He issued a subpoena like most people write a letter,” Waxman said.
Waxman complained that Republicans, while in power, shut Democrats out of decision-making and abdicated oversight responsibilities, focusing only on maintaining their own power.
In contrast to the many investigations the GOP launched of the Clinton administration, “when Bush came into power there wasn’t a scandal too big for them to ignore,” Waxman said.
Among the issues that should have been investigated but weren’t, Waxman contended, were the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, the controversy over the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s name, and the pre-Iraq war use of intelligence.
He said Congress must restore accountability and function as an independent branch of government. “It’s our obligation not to be repeating with the Republicans have done,” Waxman said.
Waxman is savvy and will run investigations with focus and flair. He’s very, very good at these things. I think he will find a way to do this without appearing to be exacting revenge or wasting the congress’s time. And the fact is that it’s his duty to do it, regardless. Just look at the list of events about which we are all still reading tea leaves and waiting for Bob Woodward’s book to come out to tell us what the Washington whispers are saying. We need a sober, serious official look at what the hell’s been going on in Washington these last six years and Waxman’s the guy who can do it.
Update: Billmon has more.
Update II: Lawyers, Guns and Money takes down Mickey Kaus’ ill absurd rant about Waxman.
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