If they don't even try very hard, there should be hundreds of executions for treason.
Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 08/27/2010 4:53:43 AM PDT by Second Amendment First
If President Barack Obama needed any more incentive to go all out for Democrats this fall, here it is: Republicans are planning a wave of committee investigations targeting the White House and Democratic allies if they win back the majority.
Everything from the microscopic – the New Black Panther party – to the massive –- think bailouts – is on the GOP to-do list, according to a half-dozen Republican aides interviewed by POLITICO.
Republican staffers say there won’t be any self-destructive witch hunts – but they are clearly relishing the prospect of extracting information from an administration that touts transparency.
And a handful of aggressive would-be committee chairmen – led by Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) – are quietly gearing up for a possible season of subpoenas not seen since the Clinton wars of the late 1990s.
Issa would like Obama’s cooperation, says Kurt Bardella, spokesman for the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. But it’s not essential.
“How acrimonious things get really depend on how willing the administration is in accepting our findings [and] responding to our questions,” adds Bardella, who refers to his boss as “Questioner-in-Chief.’
That’s feeding anxieties within the West Wing – even if administration officials won’t admit it publicly.
“I actually think it will be even worse than what happened to Bill Clinton, because of the animosity they already feel for President Obama,” says Lanny Davis, a deputy White House counsel who lived through Clinton’s trials.
With that in mind, here’s a list of six possible committee investigations if Republicans take back the House in November, culled from GOP aides, Democratic insiders and outside experts:
Sestak, Romanoff and Jobgate. Most of the Clinton-era investigations – from Whitewater to Vince Foster to the Lewinsky scandal — targeted the president personally.
Most potential GOP probes of Obama, by contrast, seem to be aimed at the administration’s periphery or policies – with the ironic exception of the one that revolves around – yep — Bill Clinton.
Issa has made no secret of his interest in getting to the bottom of muddled, mishandled White House attempts to force Democratic Senate candidates Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff from races in Pennsylvania and Colorado.
White Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina sent Romanoff an email with several potential non-Senate job possibilities; Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel enlisted Clinton to dangle the possibility of several unpaid executive branch appointments to Sestak in exchange for allowing Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter to run unopposed. Sestak said no – and trounced Specter.
White House counsel Bob Bauer – the veteran election lawyer who would be Obama’s first legal line of defense against the GOP – has said no laws were broken. So have some GOP lawyers, but Issa isn’t convinced – and has called on Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate.
Privately, Issa’s staff is afraid of taking it too far. The backlash against Republican investigations in the Newt Gingrich era is fresh in his mind.
He’s told associates he doesn’t want to be labeled another Dan Burton – a reference to the overzealous Indiana Republican oversight chairman who once shot at a pumpkin in his backyard to re-enact Vince Foster’s death.
“If Republicans go on an investigative witch hunt when and if they gain power in November, then their power will be very short lived,” said Mark McKinnon, a former George W. Bush adviser sympathetic to Obama. “The American public wants Congress to work together, not to investigate each other.”
Bailouts, Bailouts, Bailouts. No investigation poses a more significant political danger to Obama than a no-holds-barred GOP probe into TARP, the AIG bailout, the Freddie-Fannie sinkhole and the administration’s de facto takeover of GM and Chrysler.
Reason One: Perhaps the only issue uniting all voters is a shared hatred of all bailouts – so few Democrats, even die-hard liberals, would be willing to stand in front of a bus to defend Obama against attacks.
Reason Two: One GOP aide described the bailouts as a “huge pool” from which to make document and email requests – and issue subpoenas. The prospect of a massive – and popular -- fishing expedition at the West Wing’s expense would delight the Republican base and create a political headache for the president’s team.
Issa seriously rattled Democrats earlier this summer by revealing the lengths he’s willing to go to obtain information – asking Google executives if they would be willing to turn over Gmail messages pertaining to administration business.
“If he comes at them, the White House will then have to make up its mind: Will they let their lawyers take over or will they let the political people run the show?” says Lanny Davis, who counsels Obama to turn over as much as possible as quickly as possible to avoid allegations of stonewalling.
“If Rahm Emanuel is still Chief of Staff, they will have a huge advantage – he’s been through this before and he’ll push back against the lawyers,” added Davis.
Countrywide Mortgage and “Angelo’s List.” Sen. Chris Dodd’s embarrassing placement on the company’s VIP mortgage list played a major role in the Connecticut Democrat’s involuntary retirement earlier this year.
Issa – using only the bully pulpit – has already forced Countrywide’s parent, Bank of America, to turn over reams of documents. If he becomes chairman, Issa will use the committee’s power to obtain more information on sweetheart deals, even if it involves GOP politicians, according to a person close to him.
“I think the White House is underestimating him,” says a top Congressional Democratic aide. “What makes him so dangerous is that he’s willing to turn on Republicans too.”
The New Black Panther Party. Smith, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, has already pressed Holder to look into charges that members of the New Black Panther Party intimidated voters at a Philadelphia polling place in 2008.
The San Antonio-area conservative – whose first campaign was managed by Karl Rove – is already on record criticizing Holder for dropping the Justice Department case against three Panthers, including one who brandished a police-style baton.
“Congress, in furtherance of its oversight obligations [needs] to receive answers” on the Panther case, he wrote in late 2009.
“Congressman Smith thinks it’s far too early to discuss any possible investigations before the voters have spoken,” said a Smith spokesman, before adding:
“But, yes, we would definitely want answers about the Black Panther case.”
ACORN. A whole host of Republicans – led by Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Steve King (R-Iowa) on the party’s right wing – have demanded an investigation into the defunct community organizing group’s ties to the Obama campaign.
Still, neither Issa nor Smith are said to be enthusiastic about jumping back into the controversy – considering the fact that ACORN is out of business and most Democrats have already signed on to a bill barring federal funding of the group.
Related: Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) – who stands a chance of leap-frogging Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), the ranking GOPer on the House Financial Services Committee – is pushing for a large-scale investigation of the Community Reinvestment Act.
Minerals Management Service. The juiciest Bush-era revelations about the agency’s shortcomings have already been aired – including the fact that some MMS employees allegedly had sexual relations with workers they were supposed to oversee.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has already admitted MMS officials were asleep at the switch in monitoring BP’s Deepwater Horizon platform before it blew up. But Issa is bent on finding out which Obama administration officials were responsible for missing the warning signs – and why clean-up and response efforts didn’t take place more quickly.
Its a start but they better hold themselves to the same standards so deal making is off the table.
Holder is criminal of the nth degree.It shouldn't take too much to find that ONE smoking gun memo and/or email that'd put him in the Graybar Hotel for 10 years. And that would just be the start.
As the saying goes: I'd beat him like a rented mule.
(legally of course)
Start with one investigation,an easy one to win,the voter intimidaion case. In a few months start another. Announcing a half dozen out of the gate will be awful.
For all those that want solutions to other problems i say sure but these are criminals in office. They need to be exposed and treated as such.
I'd rather they bring back dueling.
Precisely. Good Post.
That’s exactly what I want to know too! You just know that that was engineered!
“I wanna know who crashed the market in September of 2008, just prior to the election, causing us to crap out $ 700 billion dollars in TARP !!!!!”
Megadittoes on that one! That’s the granddaddy of all mysteries.
I predict Soros, Schumer, Dick Durbin, Dodd, Barney Fwank and Harry Reid are up to their eyeballs in that skullduggery.
Nobody has personal control over what the market does.
If they don't even try very hard, there should be hundreds of executions for treason.
Boy that worked so great with Clinton. Here’s an idea GOP, how about you LEAD? How about you start getting legislation passed (and repealed) that aids the country in getting out of this hole? How about you live the ideals you represent, instead of engaging in the endless finger-pointing and saying “Boy look at that piece of crap.” That’s not leadership.
I would be nice if they started stepping down the path of removing the legal weight of executive regulatory agencies.
Nothing should have the force of law that Congress doesn’t vote on.
Agenda of story: Don’t vote Repub, as they will tie up Congress with petty investigations, and get nothing done.
I like your way of thinking. The execution part is way over due. They should start with that Wickyleaks founder and work there way up to Soros.
Exactly. BTTT
Did the obammy campaign ever verify that the millions of “small” donations they received were, in fact, legal?
Every other law abiding candidate used the process that the credit card companies offer that verifies the address of the credit card customer BEFORE the transaction is processed.(Like, before they ship the goods.) Obammy’s boyz turned that feature off, and, when asked, said they would verify the addresses after the campaign. (Yeah right.)
The appropriate committee should ask: “Should Congress amend the election financing laws to require that credit card contributions be confirmed to be from United States Citizens before they are accepted by the campaign?” and during the hearings look into the 2008 elections, including the primaries. If illegal foreign contributions are accepted by the campaign, what penalty would be appropriate?
Interesting. Nothing about getting to the bottom of the Lockerbie bomber deal....
Soros and Obama’s rich sheik friends. One of these sheiks cooked the books at citi.
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