The Republican Mystery (Washington Post, Harold Meyerson)

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/27/AR2007032701722_pf.html

The Republican Mystery

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, March 28, 2007; A15

The truly astonishing thing about the latest scandals besetting the Bush administration is that they stem from actions the administration took after the November elections, when Democratic control of Congress was a fait accompli.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' hour-long meeting on sacking federal prosecutors took place after the election. The subsequent sacking took place after the election. The videoconference between leaders of the General Services Administration and Karl Rove's deputy about how to help Republican candidates in 2008, according to people who attended the meeting, took place Jan. 26 this year.

During last year's congressional campaigns, Republicans spent a good deal of time and money predicting that if the Democrats won, Congress would become one big partisan fishing expedition led by zealots such as Henry Waxman. The Republicans' message didn't really impress the public, and apparently it didn't reach the president and his underlings, either. Since the election, they have continued merrily along with their mission to politicize every governmental function and agency as if their allies still controlled Congress, as if the election hadn't happened.

Clearly, they had grown accustomed to the Congress of the past six years, whose oversight policy towards the administration was "Anything Goes." But their total and apparently ongoing inability to shift gears once the Democrats had taken control -- with an oversight policy that could be summarized as "You Did WHAT?" -- is mind-boggling.


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