What is the POINT in delegating oversight powers to Congress if the White House can just withold documents from Congress? And what good is it if Congress doesn't ENFORCE their duty to oversee the executive branch?
First we have Fitzgeralds notes about emails people talked about that never made it to the archive system... And now we see that Gonzales is holding back documents relating to the Plame leak as well... Documents related to an investigation... Shouldn't this be considered Obstruction of Justice?
And how about this? Straight from John Conyers, on his Resolution of Inquiry into the NSA spying...
A few quick impressions: first, I was surprised at how half hearted the Republican defense of the program was. I would even go further -- while some offered a full throated defense of the program, many of my Republican colleagues seemed almost sheepish about it, and many did not speak about it at all.
Second, Republicans repeatedly asserted that the documents were not needed because Judiciary Chairman Sensenbrenner has unilaterally submitted 51 questions (pdf) to the Attorney General, and that the Attorney General would testify at a general oversight hearing at some undetermined point in the future. I and the other Democratic Members responded that this was wholly inadequate, and that to fulfill their constitutional oversight role the Committee needed to obtain documents from the Administration and hold separate hearings on the NSA issue.
More to the point, while some news outlets touted the Chairman's letter, his questions are, in my view, inadequate. A close reading of them reveals that the first 38 questions essentially ask the Department whether they think the program is legal. They have already given us their answer on that. The remaining questions are so general, that they can be answered by a google search of what is already in the press.
How can we even maintain the ILLUSION of democracy? Can we still save our democracy from the one party administration that has siezed control?
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You have some really good points in here. Some I hadn't thought of.
The struggle for power between the executive branch and congress is one I don't really know enough about. Nolies, isn't it possible for members of congress to sue Gonzalez for access to these documents? I mean, I doubt that will ever happen, because you're right in that congress has just been letting this administration walk all over it, but isn't it still possible?
I believe they're claiming executive power.
Executive power.. given to them by the Constitution, which is interpreted by the courts. Seems to be the kind of thing the Judicial branch was made for.
Which is exactly why they've stacked the courts with "out of the mainstream" neoconservative judges!
That's been the point all along!
Alex, the media is not doing their job. Congress is not doing thiers! The pResident and his administration are at best incompetent and at worst outright corrupt. They are twisting the arms of Republicans in order to drop the NSA ILLEGAL spying and they've appointed judges who worked with these same people in office! They are complicit!
And Alex, the job of the media is to protect you and I from abuses of power--same with Congress--same with the Judicial system.
All of this will affect your generation for many years to come. Me...well, I'll probably be dead before all of these things really take hold. You however will probably look back at this time and wonder why it got this bad before people jumped in and stopped it.
I hope you'll look more closely and will jump in soon! You don't have to be a democrat, a green, a commie to do this. You can be a LEGITIMATE moderate republican who will simply say, "THIS regime is so far extreme that we must not let the corruption and incompetence continue."
I hope you'll take that step!