New Waxman Interview At Huffington Post "They use the attack on September 11, 2001, as an excuse"

[Hissyspit]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/11/huffpost-interview-rep-_n_63878.html

HuffPost Interview: Rep. Henry Waxman
September 11, 2007 01:25 AM

Huffington Post political editor Thomas B. Edsall recently spoke with House Oversight Chairman Henry Waxman, who has led many of the high-profile investigations into the Bush administration over the last year:

Tom Edsall: I was looking over your website and some clips. I noticed you have 61 investigative agendas or targets. How would you assess how you've done on those? Where have you made the most headway?

Henry Waxman: We've been looking at three general themes in our Oversight investigations.

One, we want to look at waste, fraud, and abuse of tax payers dollars ...

- snip -

And then the third theme is that we've got to hold this administration accountable. One of the main purposes of Oversight is to provide the checks and balances between the independent branches of government, and I think Oversight is -- investigation -- may be in some ways even more important than legislating because we're making sure that the laws are carried out, we're trying to figure out what other laws may be needed, and we're trying to keep people honest. Government in a democracy functions best when it's open and transparent and accountable, and with this Bush administration we've had an administration, in its zeal for power, try to operate in secrecy and without being accountable.

TE: Is there a way to quantify your success, especially on this last front with the accountability of the administration?

- snip -

HW: They use the attack on September 11, 2001, as an excuse to, in many ways, shred the constitution and act unilaterally. The founders of this country viewed with alarm any concentration of power with the wise understanding that, when there's a concentration of power, it would lead to abuse, it would lead to arrogance, and they wanted to avoid it at all costs. And that was why they came back with a system to provide checks and balances between the three independent branches of government.

Well, the Congress abdicated its responsibility during six years of the Bush administration. Rather than seeing their job as leaders of an independent branch of government, they saw their job as being good Republicans first. And it was such a stark contrast to the way they handled Oversight when Clinton was president. They used it in a very political way then by running after any accusation no matter how small or inconsequential by issuing subpoenas and calling hearings and making wild accusations that turned out to be inaccurate. And when Bush became president, there wasn't a scandal big enough for them to ignore.

I often try to just show the juxtaposition of how much effort the Republicans put into an investigation of whether President Clinton misused his Christmas card list for political purposes to which they made a great to-do, for which they were willing to hold public hearings and attack President Clinton. And yet, when it came to treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the outing of a CIA agent, the misinformation that has been given to the American people to get us into war, the waste of taxpayers' dollars by contracting out more government services and wasting dollars as a result -they just didn't see that as worthwhile to hold hearings.

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[groovedaddy]

1. There it is again - that g.o.p. hypocricy

What will it take to impeach these bastards in the white house?

[mmonk]

2. Let Sibel speak

Mr. Chairman.

[L. Coyote]

3. Thanks. K & R & Impeach