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“That epitomizes their philosophy: ‘Those Democrats didn’t know anything, and if they’re against smoking we’ll be for it and blow smoke in their faces.’
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Some things never change!

As the new chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, Waxman will have free rein to investigate, as he puts it, “everything that the government is involved with.”
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Awesome! This is the best news I’ve heard in weeks.

KT here–

Cliff: Actually, that is his old job. There’s going to be a whole lot less investigating going on with Democrats controlling both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

While revenge stories are always satisfying in literature and movies, you always know how far you are from the end so the stream-of-injustice portion is never too infuriating. In real life however, some injustice is just too excruciating to be believed and much of it never gets rectified.

The past eight years may fade from memory and be sanitized by history but the damage itself will never be undone. Stated another way, nothing the Congress has done in the last two years has done anything to shed light and has done much to help bury the worst of the Bushco abuses of power.

Telecom immunity anyone?

“There’s going to be a whole lot less investigating going on with Democrats controlling both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.”
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Nice. Of course there is the outside chance that the new administration will be slightly less disastrous than the current one.
But your insinuation that it’s because of one party controlling both ends was classy.

Blast! I will add that to the “Bad News” pile then.

“nothing the Congress has done in the last two years has done anything to shed light and has done much to help bury the worst of the Bushco abuses of power.”
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales?

And I really should have remembered that Waxman is moving from investigating to environmental matters. I think it’s a combination of coffee not kicking in and wishful thinking.

KT
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The only way there could be less investigating going on coming out of Lieberman’s shop is if they started actually committing the crimes themselves. Of course I put nothing past him.
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LIEBERMAN HATE ROCKS!

Encouraging…..

http://www.ibabuzz.com/politics/2008/07/09/how-they-voted-on-fisa-telecom-immunity/#comment-66180

RECAP of how the House voted on this BEFORE it went to the Senate:
THE CALIFORNIA PATRIOTS who had the courage to stand up and vote AGAINST the FISA bill authorizing surveillance over just about everything AND giving telecoms retroactive immunity from prosecution for not requiring warrants are: Xavier Becerra, Lois Capps,Susan Davis, Anna Eschoo, Sam Farr, Bob Filner,Mike Honda,Barbara Lee,Zoe Lofgren,Doris Matsui, George Miller,Grace Napolitano, Lucille Roybal-Allard,Linda Sanchez, Loretta Sanchez, Hilda Solis, Jackie Speier, Mike Thompson, Maxine Waters, Henry Waxman,Diane Watson, and Lynn Woolsey.

Nothing will ever top Bolton’s c@ck duster ‘stache.

KT here–

P-NNTO: It is my experience that when one party controls both ends of the avenue, the amount of investigating (none) that goes on is not related to the quality of the administration’s performance. Nor is that true if the opposite party controls both ends of the avenue (there’s a lot). Just sayin’.

KT
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This is a pretty interesting post from KagroX over at kos (he has been on fire as of late) and I wanted to get your take on it. The gist is much was made in the MSM about the liberal bloggers being foiled when Lieberman was allowed to keep his gavel but nothing was mentioned about the Blue Dogs being foiled when Waxman beat out Dingell to take Dingell’s chair on the Environnmental committee
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http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/21/9439/2883/526/664610

Gonzales wasn’t the worst, just the most blatant.

Low hanging fruit indeed.

@sgw – When you wake up, do you think “I need to pee and I hate Joe Lieberman” or “I hate Joe Lieberman and I need to pee.”

pourme
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It all depends on if I had a glass of water before bed the night before. Sometimes its a tie!

LOL. Very impressive. I feel a little like Luke – maybe I should look into this dark side. If you can shoot lightning out of your fingertips, even better.

Waxman won’t be after the dems but he probably will be going after big business.

Dirks, I was using Gonzalez as shorthand for all the USAG investigations. While I, too, have been very disappointed in the congress over the last two years to state that they have done *nothing* is false.
Dismissing forcing out an AG as low hanging fruit is nonsense.
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KT, I guess I will do some homework and look around. Statements that include “none” “always” or “never” are usually worth checking out.

KT here–

SG: That post reminds me of the old joke that ends with the punchline: “There must be a pony in here!”

KT
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Are you saying his post was, (gasp) horse pucky?

KT
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BTW I did see at least 3 discussions on MSNBC about the “angry librul bloggers” outraged about the Lieberman deal. They even had Markos from dailykos on and another guy whose name I don’t know so the meme is in fact out there

KT here–

SG: But aren’t liberal bloggers outraged by it?

PNNT,

As long as the ongoing violation of the FISA statute, the ongoing violation of the Presidential Records act, the ongoing prisoner abuse as exemplified at Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo, the routine incarceration of journailists for the crime of acting a war zone, the ongoing use of Pentagon resources to influence US public opinion and the tacit approval all these activities enjoy from supposedly independent observers and the press remain unaddressed, then yes, I’m going to refer to ousting the AG as low hanging fruit.

Of course I mean:
PNNTO

KT here–
KT, I guess I will do some homework and look around. Statements that include “none” “always” or “never” are usually worth checking out.

Also, please note that I was talking about in my own experience, which would include the periods between 1994 and 2000, as well was the period from 2000 to 2006.

KT
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Yeah but not for the reasons put forth by the cable networks. Quite a bit of it had to do with his behavior campaigning for McCain, but hardly any Cable News shows point out that he also campaigned for Coleman and Collins also. And the biggest outrage in the blogosphere is that he hasn’t investigated anything as the chairman of HSC even though he campaigned on the pledge that he would investigate the heck out of the government response to katrina. Check out this clip of Nora Odonnell trying to get Markos to act like some kind of raving lunatic to play into the “crazy lefty blogger” meme and how dissappointed she seems when it doesn’t work.
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I just disagree Dirks. You seem to feel that whole investigation into the politicization of the Justice Department was easy. It wasn’t, and it’s not over. And by any honest measure it sure wasn’t “nothing”.

Thanks for the clarification KT. 1994-2000 had split government. 2000-2006 had 4 years of one party rule and that was the current republican party which was lock step with president.
I guess time will tell over the next 4 years.

PNNTO
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You do have to admit though that it was pretty easy to offer up Gonzales as the sacrificial lamb especially considering the Congress never made him answer any tough questions that they asked him. It was just as easy as getting Rumsfield to resign 2 years ago. And I think the point Paul Dirks is making (hope I am not speaking out of turn) Is that both of those measures served to whet the public’s appetite enough that many of them stopped watching the AG’s office closely as they also stopped watching the actions in GITMO closely. It was like they felt that with those two gone everything was all good again. But as we have seen the AG’s office is still crooked as hell and highly politicized and there is still torture going on at GITMO. Getting rid of Gonzales was truly the easiest thing Bush could have done to make people back off. But to his chagrin the purges from the AG’s office story just won’t go away. But its not because of the Congress thats for sure especially since they aren’t even trying to enforce their subpoenas.

Paul-no not that one,

We’re probably disagreeing less than we are talking past each other.
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When your dealing with an administration that has perfected stonewalling as an art form and feels no compunction whatsoever at thumbing its nose at subpeonas or any other notion that it answers to anyone but itself then any sort of investigation is exceedingluy difficult and certainly credit is due for what’s been accomplished. But I still perceive AG the AG as being not only totally corrupt but incompetently so, that taking him out was significantly less difficult than the things that I see as equally important that I doubt will ever sucessfully be called into account.

Cliff: Actually, that is his old job. There’s going to be a whole lot less investigating going on with Democrats controlling both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
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There’s a backlog…..

atrios likes to point out that they do stuff just to piss liberals off. The joyous “drill baby drill” chants. The purple heart bandaids. Rush specializes in this kind of mindless, contentless ridicule (“feminazi”). The ash tray is that kind of thing.

On the backlog, the real question is whether legitimate investigation into lawless behavior over the last 8 years (and there was plenty of it) will be treated as “political” by the Village.

I hear you Dirks. I will say that I HOPE that the new congress will be more effective.
The incredible volume of things to fix is really almost too much to comprehend.

DIdn’t Atrios have a “Mustache of…” nickname for Friedman? The Mustache of Understanding?