Who's Afraid Of Congress? No-one

By Cernig

Glenn Greenwald posts to his usual high standards today as he notes the lack of consequences for ignoring Congressional subpoenas - a lack entirely engineered by Congressional Democrats themsleves.

Since the White House announced to the world that it considered Congress' subpoenas to be laughable and worthless, what has happened? Exactly what Miers and Bolton knew would happen if they ignored the subpoenas: absolutely nothing of any consequence. Both Committees voted to issue contempt citations to the two officials, but Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi -- for months and months -- have refused to bring the matter to the floor for a full vote, a requirement for a witness to be held in contempt.

And there's more of the same on the way because Pelosi and Reid think that contempt citations would "would 'step on their message' of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks". Despite Congress' investigative role being at least as important as its legislative one in the eyes of the Framers and other likeminded political theorists, the Dem leadership are unwilling to live up to their duty - unless it happens to involve baseball.

The Bush administration aren't the only ones who have nothing but contempt for this spinelessness. Count me in too.