House Chairman Admits GOP Congress Not Sufficiently Investigating Bush

[JABBS]

In an interview with the Washington Post, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-VA), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, said the GOP-controlled Congress has done insufficient oversight of the Bush Administration.

"Republican Congresses tend to overinvestigate Democratic administrations and underinvestigate their own," Davis said. "I get concerned we lose our separation of powers when one party controls both branches."

It was a rare admission from a Republican. More often, GOP leaders have accused Democrats of partisanship and political stunts when they have asked for investigations of various Bush Administration activities.

But even Davis has a hard time reconciling basic math. Democrats, using House records, said the reform committee had issued 1,052 subpoenas to probe alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party between 1997 and 2002, at a cost of more than $35 million. By contrast, the committee under Davis has issued three subpoenas to the Bush administration in a similar time period.

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Democrats list 14 areas where the GOP majority has "failed to investigate" the administration, including the role of senior officials in the abuse of detainees; leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame; the role of Vice President Cheney's office in awarding contracts to Cheney's former employer, Halliburton; the White House's withholding from Congress the cost of a Medicare prescription drug plan; the administration's relationship with Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi; and the influence of corporate interests on energy policy, environmental regulation and tobacco policy.

"Republicans have made a mockery of oversight," Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), the reform committee's ranking Democrat, told the Post. "There was nothing too small to be investigated in the Clinton administration and there's nothing so big that it can't be ignored in the Bush administration."

Davis admitted his committee had investigated the administration's handling of bioterrorism defenses and preparing for avian influenza and held four hearings on Halliburton's contracts -- after the House Armed Services Committee refused to do so. Similarly, Davis called hearings on the administration's policy on mad cow disease after Agriculture Committee Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte (R-VA) declined.

"They said it would embarrass the administration," Davis told the Post.

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This item first appeared at Journalists Against Bush's B.S.

[Blue_In_AK]

1. This paragraph is mind-boggling

Democrats, using House records, said the reform committee had issued 1,052 subpoenas to probe alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party between 1997 and 2002, at a cost of more than $35 million. By contrast, the committee under Davis has issued three subpoenas to the Bush administration in a similar time period.

Is there any hope of these people waking up and doing the right thing?

[Seabiscuit]

3. No hope beyond replacing them in the ballot box. They're hopelessly

corrupt and loyal to the administration's criminal cabal.

And before we can vote them out we have to fix the Diebold problem. Our votes still don't count, because THEY are the ones mis-"counting" them.

[intheozone]

5. Is there any hope? Don't hold your breathe waiting! nt

[Erika]

2. The GOP gave W a free run on what ever he wished to do

The GOP congress has only been a rubber stamp and abdicated any role in oversight. It's now coming back on them and biting them in the butt.

[Independent_Liberal]

4. Nice to see one of them admitting to this.

I must say, it is an honorable thing to do.

[madmark]

6. 1052 to 3

[JABBS]

7. Coincidentally ...

... that's the majority in Congress that conservatives need before they stop blaming everything on Democrats.