DeclinetoState
03-30-2007, 10:16 PM
By Joe Conason
Someday the Democrats may learn an important lesson about the collective wisdom of the media in the nation’s capital: On important questions of policy and politics, the Washington press corps is almost always wrong. They are always full of opinions about everything from clothing, haircuts and marital problems to political tactics, but the safest course is always to ignore their advice.
At the moment, the most popular line among the certified pundits is that the Congressional Democrats are in danger of displaying excessive zeal in probing Bush administration corruption—and specifically the apparent politicization of the federal law-enforcement system by the White House and the Justice Department.
On television and in print, the wise folk of Washington warn that if the Democrats insist on dragging White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove up to Capitol Hill to testify about the purging of eight United States attorneys, the public will turn on them for being too “political.” These finger-wagging journalists insist that the Democrats must “legislate” rather than “investigate.”
Certainly that was the message delivered by The Chris Matthews Show on Sunday, March 25. Host and guests agreed that the Democrats were demanding Mr. Rove’s testimony only to punish him for inflicting political defeats on their party in the past.
. . .
Since the substantive issues raised by the U.S. attorney purge—such as the political abuse of law enforcement by the White House and the false testimony of Attorney General Gonzales, among others—are of such scant interest to so many commentators, let’s focus instead on public opinion.
Every poll shows that American voters want Congress to fulfill its constitutional mandate to oversee the executive branch, which ran amok under the flaccid reign of former Speaker Dennis Hastert. Most Americans are sick of this unchecked and unaccountable Presidency, and they show no signs of impatience with Democratic efforts to rein in the White House.
More of Joe at NY Observer (http://www.observer.com/20070402/20070402_Joe_Conason_opinions_conason.asp)
I wonder where Joe's polls are. Being a newspaper columnist, I guess he doesn't have to provide sources for his information.
And I'm not sure I want to see flaccid used in a sentence with Dennis Hastert, thank you.
Someday the Democrats may learn an important lesson about the collective wisdom of the media in the nation’s capital: On important questions of policy and politics, the Washington press corps is almost always wrong. They are always full of opinions about everything from clothing, haircuts and marital problems to political tactics, but the safest course is always to ignore their advice.
At the moment, the most popular line among the certified pundits is that the Congressional Democrats are in danger of displaying excessive zeal in probing Bush administration corruption—and specifically the apparent politicization of the federal law-enforcement system by the White House and the Justice Department.
On television and in print, the wise folk of Washington warn that if the Democrats insist on dragging White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove up to Capitol Hill to testify about the purging of eight United States attorneys, the public will turn on them for being too “political.” These finger-wagging journalists insist that the Democrats must “legislate” rather than “investigate.”
Certainly that was the message delivered by The Chris Matthews Show on Sunday, March 25. Host and guests agreed that the Democrats were demanding Mr. Rove’s testimony only to punish him for inflicting political defeats on their party in the past.
. . .
Since the substantive issues raised by the U.S. attorney purge—such as the political abuse of law enforcement by the White House and the false testimony of Attorney General Gonzales, among others—are of such scant interest to so many commentators, let’s focus instead on public opinion.
Every poll shows that American voters want Congress to fulfill its constitutional mandate to oversee the executive branch, which ran amok under the flaccid reign of former Speaker Dennis Hastert. Most Americans are sick of this unchecked and unaccountable Presidency, and they show no signs of impatience with Democratic efforts to rein in the White House.
More of Joe at NY Observer (http://www.observer.com/20070402/20070402_Joe_Conason_opinions_conason.asp)
I wonder where Joe's polls are. Being a newspaper columnist, I guess he doesn't have to provide sources for his information.
And I'm not sure I want to see flaccid used in a sentence with Dennis Hastert, thank you.