NY TImes: Try Something Hard: Governing

[NeoConsSuck]

Many Americans who voted this fall expressed a deep mistrust of government. House Republicans’ triumphalist vows to tie up the Obama administration with nonstop investigations and obstructionist budget crimping are not going to allay those voters’ concerns — or solve any of the country’s problems.

“I want seven hearings a week, times 40 weeks,” exulted Representative Darrell Issa, who is in line to take the gavel of the House government oversight committee.

Mr. Issa told Politico he would be evenhanded and focused on substance. But it is hard to square that with his hand-tipping campaign claim that President Obama is “one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times.” He only half-apologized later, insisting the president routinely abuses the executive budget with “corrupt” political paybacks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/opinion/14sun1.html?_r=1&hp

These next two years are going to be real ugly.

[HillbillyBob]

1. Very ugly as if the past 30 yrs have not been ugly enough

I hear people saying the left should be reasonable.
F k that.
We have been reasoned to powerlessness and painted as fuckign evil.
They want evil I say we brng a halt to that. Be stubborn be unreasonable bring guns to town hall meetings, be disrupitve make sure the pigs cannot get anything done. If we don't stand up now I think we are looking at a totalitarian theocratic fascist or some evil combination.
Americans have always been given to religious hysteria we cannot let them take us down that road any further. I do not use those terms out of context either.

[Jim Lane]

2. Then the Senate should get off its duff and hold hearings on Bush administration war crimes.

This whole "let's look forward not backward" mantra derived, I'm guessing, from a fear that seriously pursuing Bush, Cheney, and their accomplices would enrage the Republicans, who would respond by going all-out to poison the atmosphere on Capitol Hill.

Most DUers have long condemned the policy of trying to appease these lunatics, but that was, I think, the preferred policy among the Democratic Party establishment.

If Issa and his ilk start holding purely political hearings aimed at nothing except partisan advantage, then maybe -- maybe -- the Democrats will realize they have nothing left to lose. Maybe they'd be motivated to show Issa that he's not the only one who knows how to play hardball.

Of course, these hearings should have begun with the accession of the Democratic committee chairs in January 2007, but better late than never.