NYT: As New ‘Cop on the Beat,’ Congressman (Waxman) Starts Patrol

[sabra]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/us/politics/06waxman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

As New ‘Cop on the Beat,’ Congressman Starts Patrol

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 — Halliburton? Tobacco executives? Vice President Dick Cheney? You’ve been warned.

Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is promising the sort of oversight that the Bush administration has not experienced before.

“There has been no cop on the beat,” said Mr. Waxman, who accuses Congressional Republicans of having abdicated their responsibility for oversight in recent years. “And when there is no cop on the beat, criminals are more willing to engage in crimes.”

Without constant policing by Congress, he said, “the bad actors feel they can get away with anything.”

...

Despite concerns at the White House and in corporate boardrooms about a blizzard of subpoenas in the first months of Democratic control in Congress, Mr. Waxman said he had no plans to issue any for now.

“I’d prefer not to,” he said in an interview, insisting that he hoped to work with Republicans to press the administration to cooperate. “I am determined to try to restore some stability and bipartisanship.”

[blm]

1. There are less than a handful of GOPs who care about honest governance - I hope Waxman

doesn't wait too long for more GOPs to support him, because they are just NOT WIRED for honest investigations of their own.

Thanks, Henry, you're a top-tier anti-corruption, open government Democrat.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Right on, Henry. Ask 'em perlitely

and THEN clobber 'em when they don't comply.

[tanyev]

3. Oh, there were Republican cops. It's just that they were helping the criminals

instead of trying to stop them.

[TlalocW]

4. Hopefully that last quote is Waxman being politically astute

and being Mister Nicey-Nicey for the press. I hope he's smart enough to realize that there are no republicans who are going to help him out.

TlalocW

[sabra]

5. watching his Iraq reconstruction hearing right now, and it's already evident to be true...