Want to see the difference between Democrats and Republicans?

Cafferty suggested at the end of his CNN special the other day that we vote out all "incumbents." He was wrong! We need to vote out Republicans and here is a little slice of why ......

NEWSWEEK ~ What the Dems Would Do -

They've waited 12 long years to reclaim the steering wheel. How the party out of power would rule if they retake the House.

John Dingell likes to reminisce about the days when Democrats ruled Capitol Hill. Back in the 1980s and early '90s, the irascible Michigan congressman was chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the most influential in the Capitol. Dingell oversaw huge swaths of the U.S. economy, as well as the environment and food and drug laws. At times the chairman seemed more prosecutor than politician. He used his gavel to call dozens of hearings. He'd subpoena high government officials—at the time, that often meant Republicans who worked for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush—and grill them for hours under the hot television lights. Dingell always insisted that witnesses testify under oath, meaning anything less than honest answers could be met with perjury charges. It was Dingell's oversight subcommittee that uncovered the Pentagon's $600 toilet seats and exposed corruption in government agencies. "We emptied the top leadership of the EPA," Dingell recalls with obvious satisfaction. "We put a large number of FDA people in jail."

That was before Dingell was forced to surrender his gavel when the GOP won the House in 1994. If Democrats take it back next month, the party will once again be in charge of all the committees. Dingell—now 80 years old and more ornery than ever—is all but certain to return to his old job. After 12 long, frustrating years as the panel's ranking minority member, a title that left him little more than the power to complain, nothing animates Dingell more than the thought of making up for lost time.

Dingell is careful to say he is not out to get George W. Bush, or the Republicans, and insists he will extend his hand to his GOP colleagues and conduct "oversight thoughtfully and responsibly." He says "there's no list" of things he wants to investigate. But in the next breath, he quickly ticks off a list of things he wants to investigate: The Bush administration's handling of port security and the threat of nuclear smuggling; computer privacy; climate change; concentration of media ownership; the new Medicare Part D program, which he calls a "massive scandal," and the secret meetings of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force. "This is a hardheaded administration," Dingell says. "So we'll probably have lots of hearings."

The House of Representatives is full of John Dingell Democrats—exiled committee chairmen awaiting the day they can reclaim the center chair on the dais. All carry lists—if only in their heads—of issues and outrages they believe Republicans have failed to probe because such questions would be politically embarrassing to the president. Henry Waxman of California is another Democratic old-timer whose ire never dims. A tireless investigator, he's in line to head the Government Reform Committee, and plans to take aim at Halliburton and alleged rip-offs and contract abuse in Iraq. Then there's Charles Rangel, the New York congressman who's never met a cable show he didn't like. He is set to take over the Ways and Means Committee, and wants to take a hard look at the Bush tax cuts. John Conyers of Michigan has waited for years to head the Judiciary Committee. He's likely to convene hearings on the Patriot Act and domestic wiretapping. In the past, he has suggested the possibility of impeachment hearings for President Bush. "When the Clinton administration was in office, there was no accusation too small for the Republicans to rush out the subpoenas," Waxman says. "When Bush became president, there wasn't a scandal big enough for them to ignore."

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15365610/site/newsweek/?GT1=8618

The article alone puts a smile on my face - it's a MUST READ!

Dingell will probably break a few gavels.

Symbolic and durable

The Republicans have abdicated this responsibility, but they can't expect the Democrats to take the same head in the sand approach.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

is that the Dems are out of power.

Therefore, it is not correct to assume that people who act like DINOs now are going to continue to be DINOs with a Dem Majority.

Some of the most outspoken memebers of Congress on the left are outspoken because they have seniority, wide support from voters, or both.

Moreover, we can't expect someone from Oklahoma or Kansas or Texas to be as overtly liberal as someone like Barbara Boxer or Dick Durbin or Ted Kennedy.

But this doesn't mean they wouldn't be just as active of fighters for liberal casues if we had a majority.



I know that was a little off topic.

Just had to attatch that, the "throw them bums out" suggestion you mentioned by Cafferty got me thinking...


Great read, BTW.


Email that link around!

Very prudent to the discussion.