Cart and Horse

by poputonian

Following up on Digby’s earlier post about Congressional investigations, I think Nancy Pelosi likewise has it right, that it isn’t necessary to do all the impeachment drum-beating that would be typical of the now side-lined Movement Conservatism and Aggrievement Society, were the shoe to be on the other foot. To do so would be the equivalent of the prosecutor’s office judging someone guilty, and then setting out to look for evidence to prove it. It’s hard to wait it out, and much less gratifying, of course, but I think she put it well in her comments to CNN:

BLITZER: The power that you will have as the majority is subpoena power, when you conduct your investigations, your oversight. You said on “Meet the Press” back on May 7th, “Well, we will have subpoena power. Investigation does not equate to impeachment. Investigation is the requirement of Congress. It’s about checks and balances.”

Tell us how you plan on pursuing using this subpoena power.

PELOSI: Well, first of all, others have said to us, do the Democrats want to get even now that we’re in the majority? We’re not about wanting to get even. What we want to do is to help the American people get ahead, not to get even with the Republicans.

And so, as we go forward with our hearing process and — which is the normal checks and balance responsibility of Congress, it will be to what is in furtherance of passing legislation that makes the policy better, that improves the lives of the American people. In order to make important decisions, you have to base them on facts. That’s the only way your judgment…

BLITZER: So you’ll use that subpoena power as appropriate?

PELOSI: Well, it’s not a question — well, subpoena power is a last resort. We would hope that there would be cooperation from the executive branch in terms of investigating the pre-war intelligence. I don’t know — those decisions will be made by our caucus with the wisdom of the committees of jurisdiction.

They may or may not be a priority. We’re a brand-new caucus, we have many new, excellent members coming in and we will establish our priorities together. But we will not abdicate our responsibility as the first branch of government, Article I, the legislative branch and our checks and balances responsibilities.

BLITZER: I asked the question about subpoena power because the vice president once again made clear if you subpoena him, he’s not necessarily going to play ball. “I have no idea that I’m going to be subpoenaed,” he said the other day, “and obviously we’d sit down and look at it at the time, but probably not in the sense that the president and vice president are constitutional officers and don’t appear before the Congress.”

PELOSI: Well, as you know, President Ford did and he wasn’t subpoenaed because he came without a subpoena, but why are we even talking about this? We’re so far from that. We’re at a place where we’re here about the future.

Whatever information we need to make the future better, to go forward, whether it’s to protect our country, to end our engagement in Iraq, to make our economy fair, whatever it is — we need to move towards energy independence, I might add — that’s where our priorities are. Information is central to that. So we would have hearings to obtain information.

That’s right. Relax. Get the information (evidence) first. Time is on our side now.