Woodrow Wilson on the Congress' Power to Investigate

[JDPriestly]

It is the proper duty of a representative body to look diligently into every affair of government and to talk much about what it sees. It is meant to be the eyes and the voice, and to embody the wisdom and will of its constituents. Unless Congress have and use every means of acquainting itself with the government, the country must be helpless to learn how it is being served; and unless Congress both scrutinize these things and sift them by every form of discussion, the country must remain in embarrassing, crippling ignorance of the very affairs which it is most important that it should understand and direct. The informing function of Congress should be even to its legislative function. The argument is not only that discussed and interrogated administration is the only pure and efficient administration, but, more than that, that the only really self-governing people is that people which discusses and interrogates its administration. The talk on the part of Congress which we sometimes justly condemn is the profitless squabble of words over frivolous bills or selfish party issues. It would be hard to conceive of there being too much talk about the practical concerns and processes of government. Such talk it is which, when earnestly and purposefully conducted, clears the public mind and shapes the demands of public opinion.


http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=798

This quote is from the treatise Wilson wrote on Congressional Government in 1885.

How dare the Bush administration question Congress' right to investigate the processes of any department of the government? How dare the members of the Bush administration sit before Congress with smirks on their faces, contempt wreaking from every sweating inch of their bodies and refuse to answer to Congress. In refusing to answer to Congress, they are refusing to answer to the American people. In my opinion, that is the highest duty of any member, officer or employee of any branch or level of government --- to answer to the people for their service, for their work, for their errors, for their accomplishments. We have the right to know and the duty to demand to know what is going on. Whether or not the issues investigated are merely partisan trifles or genuine controversies will be decided by the people in the next election.

We must support our Congress in demanding answers to the questions our Senators and Representatives are asking. When employees and officers of the Bush administration smirk and demonstrate their contempt in Congress, they are smirking and demonstrating contempt for us, the American people. We deserve better.

I was horrified to see the contempt on the face of Scott Jennings when sitting before Congress. If my teenaged daughter had looked at me like that, she would have been grounded from all privileges for a long, long time. Scott Jennings should be recalled and recalled and recalled and recalled to testify until he gets that look off his face.

The executive privilege is not absolute. Bush is out of line in asserting to avoid answering the questions of Congress in their investigations. This is an intolerable situation.

[Uncle Joe]

1. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Thanks for the thread JDPriestly.