Issue a report on their blatant corruption, and they question your ethics. Question their lack of strong mine safety policies, and they shut down the hearings. Object to the handing over of control of our ports to a nation with terrorist ties, and they call you a racist. On every one of these issues, they are simply too scared to have a debate on the merits because they know they'll lose. But these aren't the only issues that threaten to expose deep Republican weakness.
Vow to investigate Bush's warrantless wiretapping, for example, and in swoops Bill Frist, threatening to change the rules of the Senate. Sen. Jay Rockefeller of the Senate Intelligence Committee has put forward a motion to hold hearings on the NSA's domestic spying scandal that, with the likely support of a majority of the committee members, looks like it may pass. God forbid the Intelligence Committee should perform any actual oversight of Bush's NSA, Frist sent a letter to Harry Reid, threatening to restructure the entire committee if the motion passes. Glenn Greenwald has some thoughts on Frist's tactics.
Frist specifically threatened that if the Committee holds NSA hearings, he will fundamentally change the 30-year-old structure and operation of the Senate Intelligence Committee so as to make it like every other Committee, i.e., controlled and dominated by Republicans to advance and rubber-stamp the White House's agenda rather than exercise meaningful and nonpartisan oversight.Yet again, Republicans are threatening to radically change long-standing rules for how our government operates all because they cannot manipulate the result they want. From redistricting games to changing the filibuster rules, when Republicans are incapable (even with their majorities) of manipulating the political result they want, they use their majority status to change how our government works in order to ensure the desired political outcome. ...
It would be an extraordinary abdication of the responsibility owed to Americans by the Intelligence Committee for it not to investigate the Administration's warrantless eavesdropping program - a program which scores of prominent politicians and scholars from across the political spectrum have condemned as being legally dubious at best, and which polls show a majority of Americans oppose and believe is illegal.
There's really not much I can add here, as Glenn has pretty much said it all. The only thing I would highlight is that this specific move again demonstrates that the Republicans are desperate. They are so scared of accountability that they're willing to go to extreme lengths to avoid it, both for themselves and for their President. While the threat to smash up the Senate Intelligence Committee is a serious one, I can't help but not be surprised, as it's just so indicative of the way the Republicans in power do business.
There is an interesting analogy that comes to mind in this case, though. When I was in junior high school, there was one kid, just a really bad seed, who was constantly getting in trouble. And without fail, every time he would get caught doing something, his obnoxious mother would be at the school within ten minutes, berating the principal for picking on her little boy. It was the same thing on the baseball field. Every strike that was called on her little boy had her on her feet, if not on the field, wishing eternal damnation upon the 15-year-old umpire.
I can't help but laugh to see this same dynamic at work here. Bushy gets in trouble and his outraged mommies and daddies in the House, the Senate, the media, his family, etc. jump in to call foul on the big bad Democrats. The mere idea of accountability for their little precious is too frightening to imagine. It's pathetic.
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