Over the past couple of days, the two most senior Democrats in the Congress: House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle have proclaimed the ineptness of the Congress to investigate that memo from an FBI agent in Phoenix and are demanding an independent commission be established for the purpose.
The Senate Dems have been holding a week-long celebration - I'm serious about this - to honor the defection of Senator Jim Jeffords (I/D-Vt) giving them control of that House. In a Capitol steps event yesterday, Hillary Rodham Clinton Rodham was so eager to get her mug in the frame that Jeffords nearly had to share the lectern with her.
The effect of that defection was to hand control of the Senate to the Democrats. Prior to that, both the House and the Senate were under the Control of the Republicans.
If Jeffords had not switched, then it might make some sense for Gephardt and Daschle to complain. They might have been able to make the case that the Republican-controlled legislative branch could not properly investigate a Republican Administration, blah, blah, blah.
But with the Senate under the control of the Democrats. I just don't get it.
Daschle, who worships at the altar of the 60-vote super majority, has long held that he won't bring
legislation to the floor unless the GOP can show sixty votes. This position has bottled up over 50 bills
which have been passed by the House and are languishing in the Senate.
Nevertheless, according to a Reuter's report by Thomas Ferraro, Daschle is not bothered by the lack of
support for legislation to establish an independent commission: "Maybe there is too much opposition," Daschle
said. "But let's have a debate. The administration may change its mind. Opponents may change their minds."
Hey Tom? How's about we employ this new legislative theory when it comes to the Presidents' judicial nominees: "Let's have a debate. Opponents may change their minds."
Administration officials have been steadfast in its position opposing an independent commission. They say that the intelligence committees know how to handle sensitive data, that the intelligence community is used to working with the committees, and that an independent commission would have to start from scratch.
House Democratic leader Gephardt said he didn't think that security was so important. In fact, according to a Ron Fournier AP piece, "Gephardt said inquiries into the situation 'cannot be top secret.'"
This, because Gephardt was embarrassed the other day when, in mid-rant about the Administration not sharing the Arizona memo, he was interrupted by a reporter who informed him that, in fact, the House Intelligence Committee HAD received that information.
Oops.
The agent who wrote the memo didn't exactly add fuel to the fire, according to lawmakers who interviewed him. In a Reuters piece by Tabassum Zakaria's:
Agent Kenneth Williams of the FBI's Phoenix office said he placed a "routine" rather than an "urgent" status on the memo he subsequently wrote recommending that flight schools be surveyed to see if they also had Middle Eastern students who potentially could be linked to bin Laden, the lawmakers said.
A Washington Post piece by Dan Balz and Mike Allen suggested this move isn't popular inside the Democratic family, either: "...their own strategists say privately the party can't win a political fight with President Bush on terrorism and need to push the debate back to domestic issues."
This last is borne out in a new Pew poll which shows, according to Don Lambro in the Washington Times, "... barely half of Democrats (51 percent) say the [party's Congressional Leadership] is doing an excellent or good job of standing up for such core principles as representing the interests of working people, protecting minorities and helping the poor."
Maybe Terry McAuliffe should have the Democratic National Committee convene an independent investigation into how Daschle and Gephardt have become so inept. And the investigation, in the immortal words of Richard Gephardt, "cannot be top secret."
The Secret Decoder Ring page today: The Mullings review of the new Star Wars movie, a link to the Pew Research poll, and a pretty funny Catchy Caption.
If you are working at a lobbying firm, a government affairs office, a coalition, or a PAC you should take a
look at this page to see how advertising in Mullings might serve your organization very well:
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