LAT: For Better or Worse, He's on It, Waxman knows how to make GOP squirm

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON — Just another Tuesday afternoon and the far-flung offices of the WBI — the Waxman Bureau of Investigation, a.k.a. the self-appointed Inspector General of the World — are buzzing.

Hunched over a table in the Rayburn House Office Building, close enough to the kitchen to smell the reheated spaghetti, an investigator hunts for signs of corporate misconduct. Two floors down, in a basement cubbyhole, a former MIT scientist is busy discovering that some seniors can do better at Costco than through the new Medicare prescription plan. Up the block, at another outpost, a researcher has spread out Dick Cheney's personal finances to see how the latest GOP tax cuts will benefit administration bluebloods. Nearby, staff lawyers look at clean-air regulations, AIDS funding and whether a Wilshire Boulevard renovation project will make traffic worse....

(A)t a time when many of his Democratic colleagues have spent the last decade in a defensive crouch, outmaneuvered by their GOP rivals, Waxman has found another way to have an impact — going outside normal legislative channels to exert influence on issues he cares about. In the process, he has also made himself into what many Republicans consider the biggest pest east of the Mississippi.

The key to Waxman's unlikely success is this: He has assumed a big chunk of the watchdog role usually filled by the entire Congress, probing deep into government programs and problems to oversee a president and GOP he believes have run amok.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-waxman17jul17,1,4293498.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Should Democrats win in November, with Waxman taking control of his committees and the accompanying subpoena power, a Republican rival said: "I would suspect the Bush administration would very much know he was in charge."

[goclark]

1. Go Waxman! nt

[blm]

2. Henry Waxman - another hero for the Anti-corruption, Open Government

wing of the Democratic party.

[niyad]

3. henry is a hero!!

[durrrty libby]

4. We must get the House back, so he can really dig in n/t

[xxqqqzme]

5. we should all be so lucky

2 be truly represented by a congress person such as Waxman. I marvel that I am surrounded by districts w/ remarkable representatives while I get stuck w/ dana whorbacher.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Waxman, Conyers et al are the reason we have to get behind

any and all Dems after the primaries. DINOs, Zellites, even Holy Joe if he gets the Dem primary nod. It's nosecounts, not political purity that will give us what we need: Control of the committees.

[Rose Siding]

7. kicking this excellent coverage for Waxman-

The research Waxman's staff generates is so strong and so pointed it gives his GOP colleagues heartburn, including Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, (R-Va.), who chairs the Government Reform Committee.

"Henry Waxman, left to his own devices, is not a welcome sight for Republicans," Davis said.