986. The "o" word

Let's not allow the temptation of the "i" word to overwhelm the importance to our nation of the "o" word. The threat of impeachment is important and necessary. But we should focus on Oversight. It's been missing in action for over 5 years under this corrupt and incompetent Congress, and we're far worse off for it.

John Conyers tells it like it is over at The Huffington Post:

It's not every day a Congressman from Detroit has his name mentioned on, not one, but two Sunday morning news shows.

First, on ABC's This Week, I was taken to task by none other than the soon-to-be-ex-Congressman Tom DeLay. Democrats should not be allowed to take back the House, he said. Why? Because, he claimed, "John Conyers will be the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee if the Democrats take over. John Conyers is to the left of your next guest, Howard Dean and he's already participated in mock impeachment hearings." Funny, I don't remember that hearing. I did organize a Democratic forum on the Downing Street Minutes, but that was not about impeachment, and the Republicans wouldn't even let us have a room for it.

[snip]

Perhaps Mr. Russert has forgotten, but I have been a Chairman before. For five years, from 1989 to 1994, I was the Chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, now called the Government Reform Committee. I have a record of trying to expose government waste, fraud and abuse.

That was back when Congress did something called "oversight." You know, in our tri-partite system of government, when Congress actually acted like a co-equal branch. The Republican Congress decided to be a rubber stamp for President Bush instead.

Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we wouldn't be mired in a war based on false pretenses in which we have lost thousands of our brave men and women in uniform and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

Perhaps we would not have had an energy policy drawn up in secret with oil company executives that has led to gas prices of more than three dollars per gallon.

and the rest....