The Grown-Ups Are Back In Town

[babylonsister]

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/19/the-grown-ups-are-back-in-town/

The Grown-Ups Are Back In Town
By: Christy Hardin Smith


Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee did its job. No, not the parlimentary propping up of the Administration tap dance to which we have grown accustomed lo these many years…but some meaty, honest to goodness oversight.

Wherein the Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzalez, was sworn in to give testimony under oath, and under threat of perjury for any false repsentations made to Congress — just like any other witness to the Judiciary Committee would have to be sworn. And then was asked a series of tough, detailed questions to give him an opportuity to explainthe rationale behind actions of the Bush Administration that have been awfully close, shallwe say, to the illegality line…if not crossing it outright.

It's tough to know for certain, considering how little fact-gathering and oversight has actually been done for the past six years, and all, but I'm hopeful that some day — and this always seems to happen that someone starts talking and then all the worms start spilling out of the bait can, doesn't it? — we'll get the entire story. Until then, there are a whole lot of rocks to uncover and a whole lot of festering, writhing, dark-corner-loving conduct to expose to the sunshine.

Yesterday, Sen. Pat Leahy launched a blistering series of questions and critiques regarding the US treatment of an innocent Canadian man who was whisked to a secret detention facility and subjected to torture for at least a year before they finally released him. Crooks and Liars has the video, and it is well worth the watching.

Leahy: "We knew damn well if he went to Canada he wouldn't be tortured. He'd be held and he'd be investigated. We also knew damn well if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country, a country that has always been a beacon of human rights, to send somebody to another country to be tortured."

Let me just say this morning, as clearly as I possibly can do so, that I adore Pat Leahy for this one statement alone. But the fact that he, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, set up this hearing and demanded answers? THIS is why I worked my butt off in the last election cycle — because this is what our nation needs. Robust, honest, fact-based, philosophically examining debate about who we are as a nation — and how our actions, right or wrong, affect our status in the world around us and speak to what we are, or to whom we wish we were.

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[quiet.american]

1. Hear, hear. n/t

[wake.up.america]

2. About time America started to revert to common sense and justice.

[MasonJar]

3. Ditto. I worked every time I could for months to elelct John Yarmuth

to represent the 3rd District (Ky) and to get rid of Anne Northrup. It was an uphill battle, but we won. It happened so many places despite the pugs control of machines. I believe that they were going to make it a small pug win just so it did not look too suspicious, but they underestimated the anger of the people this time.