First Order Of Business For New Congress: Pestering!

By Number Six

Sunday, November 12, 2006 at 01:10 AM

Future Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says scrutinizing the executive branch will be a top priority come January....

Meaning, the rubberstamp congress that Chimpy used as his, um, rubberstamp is now to be a memory:

After meeting with Mr. Bush at the White House, Senator Harry Reid, the incoming Senate majority leader, said "the first order of business" when Democrats formally take over in January will be to reinvigorate Congressional scrutiny of the executive branch, with a focus on Iraq.

"Let's find out what's going on with the war in Iraq, the different large federal agencies that we have," said Mr. Reid, Democrat of Nevada. "There simply has been no oversight in recent years."

Well said, sir, well said. "Zero" aptly describes such.

The House, too, aims to do their thing, despite Speaker Pelosi's promises of "cooperation", by recranking oversight systems shut down by the Rethugs since 94:

Rep. Ike Skelton knows what he will do in one of his first acts as chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the Democratic-led House: resurrect the subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

The panel was disbanded by the Republicans after they won control of Congress in 1994. Now, Mr. Skelton, D-Mo., intends to use it as a forum to probe Pentagon spending and the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq war.

We could say all of this is part and parcel of the Rethug corruption scam. But, since the 94 "Contract Hit On America", the Rethugs systematically did away with oversight, monitoring and other things that would have given the late Harry S Truman cause to offer more of his famous "road maps". And historians note: Truman made himself a darling to FDR by being one tough investigator of war-time corruption by DOD contractors who said they were doing things, and were not.

Some may write it off as the Dems getting even. No, finally, getting Congress to do part of its job: Keeping tabs on our money, and who does what with it.