Partisan Rancor Accompanies Passage of Disaster Aid Bill

Democrats Say They Will Not Join GOP-Controlled Probe

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 9, 2005; Page A18

Democrats sharpened their criticisms of the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina yesterday, refusing to participate in a Republican-controlled investigative panel and displaying a photo in the Senate of the president strumming a guitar the day New Orleans was inundated.

The day's events, which included a near-lionization of the only Democratic senator from the hard-hit states, left little doubt that political reaction to the catastrophic storm will be dramatically more partisan than was the response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"We are reaching a perfect political storm," Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) told reporters as lawmakers appropriated another $52 billion in hurricane relief aid but differed bitterly on how to figure out what went wrong.

Congressional Democratic leaders said they would not name members to a House-Senate commission that Republicans announced Wednesday to investigate local, state and federal government actions before and after Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast Aug. 29. Democrats said the proposed panel is unacceptable because they were not consulted about its formation and because GOP lawmakers would outnumber Democratic members.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090801856.html

Finally, they are being smart. If there are no democratic representatives or senators on the commission, it won't be bi-partisan. It will just be a Republican whitewash of the Republican-controlled government. Consequently, if they actually went through with the "investigation," it would have no legitimacy.

Or, the Republicans will decide not to participate with their commission because of how ridiculous they would look investigating themselves and give in to the demand for an independent investigation by agree to support the appointment of a special prosecutor.

Either way, we'll get some small portion of justice. If only the Dems had learned this lesson sooner. Everytime we "cross the aisle" and support these Republicans, we legitimize their dangerous policies and actions -- the quagmire in Iraq being an example.